Cleveland State
 

Thursday, November 10th, 2022
8:00 PM
Fifth Third Arena
ESPN+

The Bearcats' first D1 opponent of the regular season will make the 3.5 hour trip down I-71 to Clifton today and participate in the second part of a basketball double header which will feature the women's team taking on Tennessee Tech at 5 pm.

The Vikings are coming off a 20-11 21/22 season and are led by first-year head coach Daniyal Robinson who was previously an assistant coach at Iowa State.

Cleveland State also opened their season against a D2 opponent earlier this week but did not fare nearly as well as UC. They blew a double-digit lead with 6 minutes to go in the game and lost 72-68 to Notre Dame College (also located in Cleveland).

6'8 junior wing and Iowa State transfer Tristan Enaruna contributed 20 points and 11 rebounds. The team shot 4/17 from 3 and an abysmal 8/18 from the FT line.

The Bearcats are 20-point favorites.

Thanks for framing these up, Queens.

Early game makes it look like there's reason to be concerned about our defense and rebounding.

Davenport getting some run at the 3 here.

pretty bad, honestly

Davenport had a nightmare of a half on defense.

We look really disjointed on offense.

What we learned (in a one game sample size):

DDJ is our best player. Though you could make an argument for Lakhin. Nolley is a distant third.

Lakhin is our most important player. There is no room for debate with this statement. Lakhin's backups (Ody and Kalu) were both disasters on the floor. Late in the game Wes went with Ody over Kalu and Ody proceeded to stink it up, but it's a sign he sees the problem. Lakhin better work on his endurance as I foresee him getting far closer to 30 minutes than I would have thought before the season. It might be worth giving Hensley minutes at the 5, but Hensley could also perhaps use more minutes at the 4 if Davenport continues to play like he did tonight.

Very shaky opening 30 minutes. Much better final 10.

I guess what was most concerning was seeing a number of returning players revert back to their worst selves from last season.

Davenport - poor shot selection and horrible defense

MAW - passenger on offense for most of the game

Ody - completely out of sync for the second game in a row

On the bright side, Lakhin and DDJ both played phenomenally.

Nolley can score double figures in his sleep but we'll need him to be more efficient against better teams.

Hensley provided a nice energy boost off the bench.

I wish that when they are struggling against a pushed defense like this that the coach would make them run more set plays. At least then there are plans for where people are supposed to be instead of guys guessing their spots for the system.

I hope Miller's recruiting continues to get better and better because his coaching leaves a ton to be desired. The number of terrible long two-pointers his teams continue to take is terrible and defense they have no clue what they are doing.

There was zero reason for Davenport to be out there in the 2nd half. Especially when they had a decent lead and really needed defense. I love the kid, but he is pretty bad at everything besides being a streaky shooter.

Landers is fun to watch.