Are star players replaceable in college basketball? To borrow a catchphrase from Sarah Palin, "You Betcha". Two key examples of this fact will be on display tonight when the Cleveland State Vikings battle the Valparaiso Crusaders, with first place in the Horizon League on the line. 

Many wondered whether or not the VIkings would be able to keep up their winning ways after losing superstar point guard Norris Cole to the NBA after last season. CSU has looked sharp all season long, and while CSU head coach Gary Waters has refused to come out and say that the 2011-2012 squad is better than last year's team that won 27 games, most observers think the Vikings will be dancing in the NCAA Tournament in March. That is something last year's team failed to do. One of the biggest hurdles that the Vikings (20-4  10-2) will face if they realize the dream of going dancing is Valparaiso who are breathing down the neck of the Vikings in the Horizon League standings at only a 1/2 game out first place. 

CSU head coach talked about injured star guard D'Aundray Brown's status for the Thursday night against Valparaiso. Brown suffered a strained groin against Loyola on Friday. Waters said his status is day to day and explained the extent of the injury in this clip.

Cleveland State University mens basketball coach Gary Waters said throughout November and December that you shouldn't judge how his team was playing in the early months and the true barometer on the Vikings was how they played in late January and February.  This was even after CSU jumped off to an incredible start to the season that saw the team win the first 10 out of 11 contests which included an upset of then-7th ranked Vanderbilt on the road to begin the year. Now observers know what the veteran head coach was saying all along as the team has turned up their level of play up a couple notches and look to clamp down their fist by clinching the regular season Horizon League championship.

Cleveland State (18-4, 8-2 HL) at Loyola (5-15, 0-10 HL)
Date: Friday, February 3, 2012
Time: 9:00 p.m. EST
Location: Gentile Center (5,200) - Chicago, Ill.
Radio: WHK 1420 AM (Cleveland) & WHKZ, 1440 AM (Warren) (Al Pawlowski)
TV: ESPNU (Jim Barber & Dave Kaplan)
Series: Loyola leads, 22-18
Last Mt'g: @CSU 69, LU 48 (1/7/12)
Tickets: Available at Site
Line: Vikings -10.5

The Cleveland State Vikings take the top record in the Horizon League to Chicago to face the win-less Loyola Ramblers. The game will be broadcast live on ESPNU and the Vikings will try to avoid the dreaded "trap-game" as it is projected that the Gentile Center will have their biggest crowd of the season take in the game.

Following the Friday night affair, the Vikings set sail to UIC to play a Sunday afternoon showdown with UIC.

The Vikes currently own a half game lead and all eyes will be on Valparaiso, Indiana, where the Detroit Titans and Crusaders are set for battle tonight in a key conference match-up. UIC and Youngstown State, who could pull to a tie with a Valpo loss and a victory over the Flames, is another game to keep an eye on this evening.

Here is how the Loyola and CSU match-up.

Imagine composing a classical piece of music that deserves to be heard or painting a masterpiece that should be seen by the masses that gets virtually ignored. That is probably how Gary Waters's feels when he sees 3,000 of the same faces at the Wolstein Center every night for the past five spectacular seasons.

The job the Cleveland State basketball coach has done in his six seasons as head coach is nothing short of remarkable, but the Vikings still are relegated to playing in front of sparse crowds in a magnificent college arena on a nightly basis and have been relegated as second class citizens in the local media's eyes despite their on the court success.

The night I did my first lengthy piece on CSU Basketball, a program I started following as a child when Kevin Mackey energized the city with his run-and-stun teams, I thought I would see what was always possible. I thought the program would start to draw as well as any Mid-Major program in the country and we would see the Wolstein Center start to see crowds lining up to see the best value in town. After upsetting 12th ranked Butler in January of 2008 I wrote:

Cleveland State will square of with the Colonial Athletic Association squad Drexel in the ESPN Bracketbuster. The Vikings will play host to the Dragons at 11 am on Saturday February 18th and the game will be televised at 11 am. Drexel currently has a 17-5 record and are 9-2 in conference play. They boast only one win against teams with a top 100 RPI after defeating Princeton at home on December 10th. The game will not have much upside for the Vikings and will disappoint many fans who thought the school deserved better with a 18-4 mark and an RPI in the mid 50's.

Here are the top television games in the Sears ESPN Bracketbusters:

Friday, Feb. 17th
ESPN2 – 7 pm ET – UNI @ VCU
ESPNU – 9 pm ET – Valparaiso @ Loyola Marymount

Saturday, Feb. 18th
ESPNU – 11 am ET – Drexel @ Cleveland State
ESPN/ESPN2 – 12 pm ET – Wichita @ Davidson
ESPNU – 1 pm ET – Buffalo @ South Dakota State
ESPN/ESPN2 – 2 pm ET – Akron @ Oral Roberts
ESPNU – 3 pm ET –Drake @ New Mexico State
ESPN/ESPN2 – 4 pm ET – Nevada @ Iona
ESPNU – 5 pm ET – Old Dominion @ Missouri State
ESPN/ESPN2 –6 pm ET – Saint Mary’s @ Murray State
ESPN3 – 7 pm ET – UNC Asheville @ Ohio
ESPN3 – 8 pm ET – UT-Arlington @ Weber State
ESPN2 – 10 pm ET – Long Beach State @ Creighton

The Cleveland State Vikings came into the 2011-2012 basketball season as one of three favorites to win the Horizon League title. Youngstown State was a mere afterthought in most early season polls as they have repeatedly been a cellar dweller in the conference but an upset win over CSU last month propelled their season and set up a chance for the Penguins to share first place with the Vikings and  Valparaiso by nights end. The city of Youngstown came out in force with a near capacity crowd of 6,313, helped by upwards of 1,000 CSU fans who made the hour long car trip, but it was apparent by nights end which Ohio team in the Horizon was the favorite to grab the regular season championship.

The Penguins kept the game in reach for the first 9 minutes but saw a 15-12 deficit turn into a 41-19 annihilation by the end of of the first half. The damage was done in large part by 6 of 8 three point shooting, the inside presence of Aaron Pogue and Anton Grady, and a swarming defense that YSU had no answers for.  By the time first half was over, the large crowd that wanted to see the Penguins biggest victory in Horizon League history was taken out of the game and the CSU faithful had clearly taken over the enemy arena.

The Cleveland State Vikings scored an impressive victory over Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon and moved into a first place tie with Valparaiso in the Horizon League standings. The 7-2 mark at the conference midway point is the benchmark but three teams are just a game behind the Crusaders and CSU as they boast 6-3 records. Butler, Milwaukee, and the surprising Youngstown State Penguins all are gunning for two of the top seeds that will earn an automatic trip to the conference semifinals when tournament play starts.

The conference standings should start coming into focus a little better this week as Cleveland State will try to avenge a home loss to YSU this weekend in Youngstown. If the Vikings can score the road victory against the Penguins, they may have smooth sailing the rest of the way as they will only face four more road games as the season winds down. The Vikings will play two games next week against conference bottom feeders UIC and Loyola and if they play up their potential can start to get some separation from the rest of the pack.

Flags will be lowed to half-staff at all Pennsylvania state facilities in honor of Joe Paterno, the legendary former Penn State University football coach who died Sunday after a battle with lung cancer.

Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett made the order to lower the flags, which will remain lowered until Paterno is laid to rest. The Paterno family has not yet made any announcements about funeral arrangements.

Paterno was the winningest coach in Division I college football, with 409 wins in 26 seasons as the Nittany Lions head coach. Paterno was fired from his position in November after former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with more than 50 counts of sexual abuse of children and the scandal that engulfed the school. PSU's board of regents said that Paterno had a moral obligation to do more after learning of a recent allegation in 2002 against Sandusky, and they thus decided to remove him.