The Notre Dame College Falcons will make the short trip to the Wolstein Center to battle the Division I Cleveland State Vikings in a Monday exhibition. Tip time is slated for 7 PM.
"Our team is excited for the opportunity on Monday at Cleveland State, "Head Coach Mark Richmond explained. "It should be a good tuneup for when the regular season starts for real this coming weekend. I'm excited to see our guys compete and play against a really good program with fans in the stands."
NDC comes into the season picked to finish fifth in the Mountain East Conference preseason poll. The Falcons were 15-14 and 12-10 in the MEC last season. They had a pair of signature wins early in the campaign as they would knock off #7 West Liberty in the home opener and also picked up a win against #10 Fairmont State at Murphy Gymnasium. NDC averaged 78.9 points per game last season while they allowed 79 points per contest. They shot 46 percent from the field and 36.9 percent from the 3-point line on the season.
Individually the Falcons return a pair of double digit scorers. Jaedon Wills was All-MEC First team last season as he put up a team high 20.5 points per game while shooting 43.4 percent from the field and 38.8 percent from the 3-point line. Willis also shot at a 83.6 percent clip from the free throw line. The senior from Baltimore will look to build off those numbers from a season ago in his second season in South Euclid. Tyland Crawford is also back for another season. Last year, his first with the Falcons saw him score a team second best 11.8 points per contest. Crawford is also the top returning rebounder at 5.9 boards per night after the transfer of last year's leading rebounder Mike Sampson to West Liberty. The Falcons also return a plethora of guys from a season ago who earned valuable experience. Those players include DeAirius Barker, Daylin Lee, Jamarr Talbert, Obinna Ugwuakazi, and Gbolahan Adio. Jevontae Jones, Panos Karras,as well as Isaiah Sanders return as well. Some new additions to the fold include former Brush standout and former Wright State product Andre Harris, as well as Kaleb Torrence just to name a couple. The last time the Falcons played CSU was October 30,2019 when the Falcons upset CSU 69-64.
Cleveland State will have a new coach on the sidelines in first year head coach Daniyal Robinson. CSU is coming off a second Horizon League regular season championship last season. The Vikings were 15-6 in the HL and 15-3 overall inside the Wolstein Center. CSU returns five players from last year's championship squad. Those players include Deante "Spider" Johnson, DeShon Parker, Jayson Woodrich, Yahel Hill, and Cole Middleton. Newcomers for the Vikings include Dylan Arnett, Jason "Deuce" Drake and Paxton Payne just to name a few. CSU scored 75.4 points per game last season while they were stingy on the defensive end giving up 69.9 points per night. The Vikings were a 74-52 winner over Baldwin Wallace on Thursday. Tristan Enaurana led four Vikings in double figures with 15 points to go along with 13 rebounds, Jason Drake chipped in 11, while Drew Lowder and Parker each tallied 10 against BW.
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