The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
McFadden likes what he sees in Vikings
From my left, I heard the voice and knew that Ken “Mouse” McFadden was in the house at Wolstein Center.
I’m not sure if the name registers with younger fans in this neck of the woods. For fans of a certain age who follow the local college basketball scene, the name and distinctive nickname are reminders of many of the Cleveland State men’s basketball program’s best moments.
McFadden was the guard from New York City with the smooth left-handed shooting stroke who was the scoring star of Kevin Mackey’s “Run and Stun” teams of the mid-to-late 1980s.
When the Vikings made their heady run through the 1986 NCAA Tournament, McFadden and his teammates put CSU basketball on the national map. They scored in bunches, defended fiercely and, steered expertly by Mackey, came at opponents in purposeful droves.
There were a lot of good players on those teams, but it was McFadden who grabbed much of the attention because he scored a ton of points and played with big-city style.
In four seasons, from 1985 to 1989, McFadden scored 2,256 points. He sits atop CSU’s all-time scoring list, 21 points clear of another product of the New York City talent pipeline, Franklin Edwards.
On this late-November evening, the 52-yearold McFadden made the trip downtown from his home in Euclid to watch his alma mater play Purdue Fort Wayne.
The Mastodons (love that moniker), play in the Summit League. They aren’t a great team, as witnessed by the 3-4 record they carried into the game. But they are a decent outfit from a league that’s the competitive equal of CSU’s Horizon League.
McFadden, seated at mid-court, watched with a sharp eye as the teams went at each other on both ends of the floor.
“I like a lot of things about this (CSU) team,” said McFadden, and who frequently attends home games and has kept close tabs on the program for the nearly 30 years that have passed since he scored the last of those 2,256 points.
CSU freshman forward Seth Millner finished with a game-high 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
McFadden liked a lot of what Millner showed against the Mastadons but wondered why the 6-foot6, 200-pound product of Grand Rapids (Mich.) Christian High School sometimes elected not to shoot when he got good looks at the basket.
CSU coach Dennis Felton said Millner didn’t do much scoring until his senior year in high school and still is feeling his way around CSU’s offensive sets.
“I love him. Talented kid from Arkansas who didn’t get many Division I offers out of high school,” McFadden replied when asked for a read on CSU sophomore point guard Tyree Appleby.
Appleby finished with 20 points, eight assists and two steals. He has a lot of the moxie in him that McFadden showed at a comparable stage of his college career.
Sophomore forward Algevon Eichelberger also got a rave review from McFadden for doing the dirty work on the inside for the Vikings. The 6-foot-8, 250-pound native of Saginaw, Mich. scored seven points and pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds.
As the game see-sawed in the second half, McFadden offered concise playby-play augmented by insights into the strategies employed by Felton and Purdue Fort Wayne coach Jon Coffman.
McFadden watched the Vikings erase a ninepoint deficit in the final three minutes of the second half.
“Diagonal, diagonal,” he said of the outof-timeout play by CSU that ended with sophomore forward Stefan Kecin burying a 3-pointer with 16 seconds remaining to pull CSU into a 79-79 tie.
After the make by Kenic, McFadden was all over the play the Mastadons ran out of their time out.
It ended with senior point guard John Konchar driving toward the basket, drawing a defender and getting the ball to junior forward Matt Holba popping free off a screen.
Holba (21 points) was true from distance and the Mastadons were 82-79 winners. CSU slipped to 2-5 with the loss.
McFadden looked at CSU’s schedule and saw tough road games at DePaul on Nov. 28 and Toledo on Dec. 1 before the Vikings return home to face Bowling Green on Dec. 5.
The Mouse said thinks the Vikings still have lessons to learn before taking a step up the ladder. Some of the lessons and losses will be painful.
“But I still like a lot of what I see,” he said. “They have some good young players.”