Men's Basketball Final Shot: Jan. 7 - Nothing Comes Easy on the Road

Men’s Basketball Scoreboard (Jan. 5)
Cleveland State 60, UIC 50

Cleveland State head coach Gary Waters commented after Friday night’s loss that his young team would play like All-Americans in practice but could not translate the effort to games. The Vikings certainly struggled at times in Monday’s Horizon League home opener, but found some of the effort Waters wanted in a 60-50 victory over UIC at the Wolstein Center.

Continuing to play shorthanded, Cleveland State (9-7, 1-1 Horizon) snapped a two-game losing streak and reinforced the notion to no road wins will come easily in Horizon League play.

Three runs essentially turned the game in the Vikings’ favor; Cleveland State opened the game scoring the first eight points, building a buffer for when UIC (10-5, 1-1 Horizon) responded with a 16-7 run to take a brief 16-15 lead on two free throws by Marc Brown.

The teams would settle in, but before the half, a 7-0 spurt would send Cleveland State into the locker room with a 28-21 lead. Josh Ivory got the burst started with a three, while Aaron Scales scored the final four points of the half, the last coming on a tip-in ahead of the buzzer.

Cleveland State forced 12 UIC turnovers in the opening half, turning those in 16 points.

The third Vikings’ run of the game opened the second half, and the 10-2 burst created a 38-23 gap for Cleveland State with 15:16 to play. Both Bryn Forbes and Tim Kamczyc rang up three-pointers in the run.

Cleveland State would lead by as many as 16 points in the half, but UIC would draw within 46-36 with 7:30 to play after a pair of Gary Talton free throws.

With the Vikings teetering a bit, it was their lone senior – Kamczyc – who settled the team. Coming free on the right wing, Kamczyc’s third three of the game restored a 49-36 lead. A layup from the senior two and a half minutes later once again blunted a mini-burst from UIC, putting CSU ahead by 11 with 4:35 to play.

UIC would not draw within three possessions again until 42 seconds remained in the contest.

Bryn Forbes scored 14 points to lead all scorers; Forbes’ effort was put him in double figures for the ninth time in the freshman’s last 10 games. Kamczyc added 13, all in the second half. The senior had gone scoreless for three consecutive halves before hitting three three-pointers in the half.

Sebastian Douglas rounded out the Vikings trio in double figures, finishing with 10.

UIC shot just 26.9 percent in the second half and was 5-of-19 from three-point range in the game. Josh Crittle and Talton each had 10 points for the Flames, which fell on the road in Horizon League play for the 28^th consecutive game.

For the game, UIC had 18 turnovers, leading to 19 Cleveland State points.