Cleveland State Resumes Horizon League play Saturday

Ready or not Cleveland State resumes Horizon League play Saturday hosting Youngstown State at 2 p.m. in the Wolstein Center.

"You never feel comfortable (starting Horizon play), but I feel we are ready for it," Vikings head coach Gary Waters said after CSU's 72-64 victory at Toledo on Wednesday. "Every night you are going to play somebody that comes after you."

The Vikings (12-2, 2-0 Horizon) have won two straight and enter the final game of the 2011 calendar year with the second most wins in program history before Jan. 1 (The most wins before Jan. 1 is 14 by last year's squad).

CSU enters Horizon play with a leg up on the competition as they picked up two key road wins at Wright State and Detroit in early December.

YSU (6-6, 1-1 HL) have lost four straight and return 63.4 percent of its scoring back from last season, including returning five of their top seven scorers from a year ago.

They are one of the top scoring teams in the Horizon League, averaging 66.8 points per game (third in Horizon), but give up 66.1 points per game (seventh in Horizon).

They are also one of the best three-point shooting teams in the nation, averaging 9.8 three-pointers per game (eighth in the country) and are shooting 38.2 percent from downtown (45th in the country).

"They have good guard play," CSU senior guard Jeremy Montgomery said about YSU after the Toledo win. "We have to match their intensity on the guard side and try to force them into turnovers."

YSU is led by the fourth-best scoring duo in the Horizon League in sophomore guard Kendrick Perry (15.7 points) and junior guard Blake Allen (13.5).