Rossi previews the Vikings side heading to Columbus to tip off the 2024-25 season.
College basketball season is fast approaching and Land-Grant Holy Land is here to get you ready. Before the season starts this fall, check back regularly for player previews, schedule news, features, and more heading into the 2024-25 Ohio State women’s basketball season.
Tuesday at the Schottenstein Center, Ohio State women’s basketball starts the 2024-25 campaign against a deceptively good in-state opponent. The Cleveland State Vikings won their program’s first Horizon League regular season title last season, and that was after Cleveland State lost its best player Destiny Leo.
Now, Leo returns for the Vikings and is part of a team full of talent, looking to upset the biggest in-state university on their own court.
To learn more about Cleveland State, Kyle Rossi from HoriZone Roundtable talked about the Vikings’ style of play, how its stars can hurt you, and what needs to happen for Cleveland to get the huge upset.
For the full interview, check out the LG WBB Podcast, which is streaming now.
Land-Grant Holy Land: Cleveland State entered the 2023-24 season with the reigning Horizon League player of the year Destiny Leo, but lost her for the year in the team’s sixth game. How is Leo in recovery and is she expected to start the year again for the Vikings?
HoriZone Roundtable: Short answer to that is great and yes.
Destiny obviously had a terrible injury last year, just kind of a weird, I saw you say the other day, “Ban ACLs”, but that’s what it was with her.
Just a weird on a drive to the basket, kind of had a little bit of contact, but mostly a non-contact injury and actually tried to reenter the game after that, just wasn’t happening for her.
I mean, she’s a tough kid really, but yeah, she’s just, to answer that part of your question, she’s doing great. She’s making half court shots on Instagram. She’s fully cleared to play.
She played in the exhibition game that Cleveland State had the other night. Probably a little bit rough, from the psychological point of view, trying to get back in to kind of game speed and things like that. She maybe didn’t have the best game, but yes, she should be good to go and in the starting lineup on Tuesday.
LGHL: Colbi Maples transferred from Grambling State before last year and picked up where Leo left off, winning Horizon League Player of the Year. The same season Mickayla Perdue joins from Toledo and wins Newcomer of the Year and Cleveland State wins the conference without their star Leo. What did Cleveland State do so well last season to propel them to the title?
HR: Yeah, when that happened, it was, the prevailing thought was, okay, this is still a very talented team, league title totally out the window, we’re not even thinking about that, but there’s still enough there, and there’s enough other teams in the conference that are going through some things that they should probably finish top four maybe, just have a very respectable season, nothing wrong with that.
The idea that they were able to win the first regular season conference title in program history was not anywhere on the radar at that point, and yeah, like you mentioned, Maples and Perdue were a huge part of that.
Maples took over, and Leo had played a lot of point guard. Maples was pretty much the definitive point guard of the team.
A lot of what happens in Cleveland State’s system, they were trying to get the ball to the middle of the floor, try to get the ball to the hoop, and Maples, Chris Kielsmeier called her a “violent player” the other day.
She always says she grew up with older brothers trying to play basketball with them. She’s not afraid of contact one bit. She maybe tries to subtly initiate contact for all I know about her, but yeah, she’s a football player playing point guard and trying to drive the paint.
The two of them together, that’s the untold story, that is the incredible chemistry that those two have. They’re just constantly together.They’ve both internalized the system and trying to work with each other.
One of them will steal the ball top and the other one’s already halfway down there knowing what’s coming.
Perdue’s sort of a three-point shooter. I mean, most of Cleveland State’s big wins last year if you go and look against Green Bay. Again, there’s another game against Oakland, but she had six, seven three-pointers. She’s an incredible shooter.
Even early in that Iowa game, if you look at that, she was, at least for the first quarter or so, going shot for shot with Caitlin Clark.
Obviously, not too many people in the entire world that are gonna be able to keep that up for 40 minutes, but I mean, she’s an incredibly talented kid and the two of them just work phenomenally together.
LGHL: What can Ohio State fans watching expect from a Chris Kielsmeier coached team?
HR: Well, the number one thing that is kind of his trademark is sort of that zone defense. They play an aggressive two-three, that’s the defense.
If they’re not playing that defense, they’re probably losing the game, pretty significantly. That’s the defense, you’re going to see them between 95 and 100% of the time.
They try to create turnovers, sure, of course everyone wants turnovers, but as much as anything else, trying to speed you up, create a little chaos, deflect passes, things like that.
And the other mantra that you always hear from Kielsmeier is defend, rebound, run.
The way to beat Cleveland State is to get them to play in the half court. That’s something I’m sure you saw the score of the Edinburgh exhibition, it was a little bit closer than probably a lot of people were expecting, but Edinburgh did a good job slowing the game down on them, making them play a half court game.
And that’s just not necessarily something they’re equipped to do. They’re trying to move fast on defense. They’re trying to get up and down the floor, get some, I call them pick sixes, I’m referencing the football term, getting a lot of those easy buckets.
But yeah, if they’re running, that’s getting into that a little bit, but if they’re playing slow, they’re probably in bad shape.
LGHL: What do you think CSU has to do to beat the Buckeyes on Tuesday?
HR: They’ve got a little bit of reputation as being like a mid-major plus. That kind of team that, okay, their name might not impress you, but they’re actually a really good team.
However, that said, I think they have had a little bit of a bright lights problem with a lot of these games. I remember there was a game at Iowa State a couple of years ago where, okay, that was a tough ask.
You know, the NCAA tournament game at Villanova, I thought should have been within reach for them, but they kind of just got their doors blown off early and ended up adjusting.
I think they, you know, score effects are what they are, but they actually outscored them in the second half of that game for what it’s worth.
So I think that’s the number one thing, is just staying in the game, you know, first five minutes, first quarter, things like that.
Hear the full interview talking Ohio State against Cleveland State on the latest episode of the Land-Grant WBB Podcast before Tuesday night’s 6:00 p.m. ET tip.