In April 2006, when Gary Waters took over as head coach of a struggling Cleveland State program which had averaged only seven wins per season over the previous four years, he summarized the manner in which his Vikings would play by simply saying, “We’re going to get after it.” Since then he has repeatedly used that phrase to not only describe his team’s style of play but also his commitment to turn the CSU hoops program into a consistently successful one – both on and off the court.
Anyone who has witnessed how Waters’ Vikings play can certainly attest to the intensity at which they “get after it.” Utilizing an absolutely withering full-court-press defense and a disciplined offense, CSU has roared out to a 15-3 record thus far this year and is well on its way to the third 20-win season and third post-season appearance since Waters was hired.
Of course, the 59-year-old Waters is no stranger to success, especially when it comes to taking over a losing program. Before he was named head coach by Kent State in 1996, the Golden Flashes had been a perennial doormat for decades in the Mid-American Conference and had never won the MAC tournament.
But by the time Waters left in 2001 to coach in the Big East at Rutgers, Kent State had strung together 23, 23 and 24-win seasons, won the MAC tournament, made three consecutive post-season appearances and beat Indiana in the 2001 NCAA tournament. (The next year the team that Waters had personally built stunned the basketball world by advancing to the NCAA’s Elite Eight after beating Oklahoma State, Alabama and Pitt, going further than any MAC squad has before or since.)
One of the reasons Waters resigned from the coaching job at Rutgers was his desire to return to the Northeast Ohio area he loves and take on the challenge of returning the Cleveland State program to the status it had achieved in 1986 when it shocked Bobby Knight’s Indiana team and advanced to the NCAA’s Sweet 16 before losing in the game’s last minute to the David Robinson-led Navy Midshipmen.
Now, a quarter of a century after that legendary tournament run which first put Cleveland State on the basketball map, Waters has the Vikings inching back to that level of excellence. Two seasons ago, CSU upset Butler in the Horizon league championship game, then went on to dominate a highly rated Wake Forest team that included several NBA prospects, running away with a lopsided 84-69 victory. After that game an ESPN writer described the Vikings as “back alley tough.”That level of toughness comes from the kind of player Waters recruits and the brutal practices he conducts. He wants players who are hungry, who may have been told by the big-time schools that they aren’t good enough or who have been overlooked for one reason or another. Then he takes these “second-tier” recruits and drives them to high levels of achievement.
A perfect example of this kind of player is star point guard Norris Cole, who was virtually un-recruited out of high school but is now, arguably, the best player in the Horizon League and is drawing rave reviews from the NBA scouts who attend the Vikings’ games to watch him. Cole credits Waters’ personal guidance and, especially, the work he demands in practice with helping make him the player he has become.
CSU practices consist of two hours of unrelenting action during which, as Waters will say with a chuckle, “we try to kill each other.” There are scrimmages without whistles in which no fouls are called and rebounding drills with no out-of-bounds lines, meaning that players sometimes have to go after the ball anywhere in the gym in order to get possession. Both Cole and teammate Tim Kamczyc are former outstanding high school football players and admit that they have never been through anything like the Vikings’ practices.
According to Waters, the effect his superbly conditioned and relentlessly aggressive team has on its opponents can be summed up in one word – fear.
“You can see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices,” he said after a recent home victory over league rival Illinois-Chicago (UIC). “Teams don’t want to play us … it’s fear.”
UIC coach Howard Moore put it this way: “They play with a tempo and ferocity I don’t think anyone in our league can match.” Few would disagree with that statement, especially after the Vikings overwhelmed the Big East’s South Florida and UIC in games two weeks ago and did so by forcing a staggering total of 50 turnovers with their torrential defense while committing only 10 turnovers themselves.
Not only does the quietly religious Waters insist on his team eliminating mistakes during games, he stresses academics and personal responsibility as keys to success. The graduation rate of his players is far above the NCAA average and once a week he teaches a one-hour “Success” class for his players in which they study what it means to become winners on and off the court.
The character and toughness of the Vikings players will certainly be tested in how they respond to the one-sided defeat they suffered last Friday at the hands of the Butler Bulldogs, the perennial Horizon League powerhouse that last season came within a few seconds of beating the mighty Duke Blue Devils for the national championship.
The two teams will meet again next month at the Wolstein Center in a game that will greatly influence who ultimately wins the league championship. A CSU victory would go a long way toward securing a coveted NCAA bid for the Vikings and would certainly provide a happy ending to what is already the best sports story in Cleveland.
Larry Durstin is an independent journalist who has covered politics and sports for a variety of publications and websites over the past 20 years. He was the founding editor of the Cleveland Tab and an associate editor at the Cleveland Free Times. Durstin has won 12 Ohio Excellence in Journalism awards, including six first places in six different writing categories. LarryDurstinATyahoo.com