The Cleveland State forward got the ball inside with just over seven minutes left in the quarterfinal game of the Horizon League Tournament Wednesday night at the Nutter Center and attempted a lay-up that was met by “thwack!”
Wright’s State Kellen Pickett, the 6-foot-9 Horizon League Freshman of the Year, blocked the attempt with the same authority he had used to stuff the shots of 39 other opponents in the season.
The 6-foot-6 Priest gathered in the deflection and turned to go back up with the ball the other way, but that’s when he found himself muscled up against WSU’s 6-foot-7, 225 pound Michael Imariagbe, who once upon a time had been named the Freshman of the Year in the American Southwest Conference, an NCAA Division III league in Texas.
Unable to get a shot over Imariagbe’s upraised arms, Priest decided to roll the other way and repeat his layup attempt, only to once again have it smothered by Pickett.
That was the kind of night it was for Cleveland State as Wright State — thanks in a big way to its dominance in the paint — overwhelmed the Vikings, 90-61, to advance to the Horizon League semifinals at Corteva Coliseum in Indianapolis next Monday night.
It’s the Raiders first trip to the league’s final four in four years. In the past three years, WSU has been beaten in quarterfinal games played at campus sites.
“Me and Mike try to impose our will on the inside,” Pickett explained afterwards.
And while the pair did that in impressive fashion on the defensive end Wednesday night, they were even better on offense. They combined for 34 points for the second game in a row.
It was the fifth time since Pickett was made a starter on Dec. 22 that he and Imariagbe combined for 30 or more points in a game.
As this Raiders’ 21-11 season has progressed, Imariagbe, a 24-year-old grad player in his sixth year of college basketball, and the 19-year old Pickett, who this time a year ago was playing high school ball at Blackhawk Christian School in Fort Wayne, have perfected their offensive attack.
WSU coach Clint Sargent talked about how the two, using a high-low set up, are hard to guard and the stat sheet magnified that point. The Raiders outscored CSU in the paint 56-18 Wednesday night.
The Vikings rarely stopped the duo. Much of the time they just fouled the two big men and Pickett responded by going 6- for-6 from the free throw line while Imariagbe went 6-for-7.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Last Friday night when the Raiders closed out the regular season at Northern Kentucky, they came back from 20 points down and won, 92-91, on Imariagbe’s final second tip-in. He had 19 points and 16 rebounds in that game.
Wednesday night it was Pickett who led the way with 18 points.
“From the moment we started playing together this year, it just felt natural,” Imariagbe said. “Actually, last year when we went to play Purdue-Fort Wayne, he visited and went out to eat with us. I sat next to him and the chemistry was there.”
Soaking it in
At the postgame press conference Imariagbe claimed he and Pickett have the same personality and are very much alike.
Pressed on that point later outside the team’s dressing quarters, both players admitted to some differences which seemed only natural.
There’s a 4 ½ year age difference between them.
Imariagbe’s parents are from Nigeria and he grew up in Houston.
Pickett’s from Fort Wayne and thought there’s some Australian heritage in his background.
The two have different tastes both musically and on the plate.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
“I like country music,” Pickett said.
Shaking his head, Imariagbe said: I don’t … I like Afro beats.”
As for food, one of Imariagbe’s favorites is fufu, the Nigerian dish that’s made with fermented cassava that has been turned into a dough texture and is torn into pieces you use to scoop up various soups and other dishes.
Pickett, who lives next door to Imariagbe, knows about fufu, but prefers fare from Fort Wayne’s Coney Island wiener stand, which was started by Macedonians in 1914 and has operated from the same W. Main Street address since. It’s the oldest coney stand in America and sells more than 1,000 hot dogs a day.
On the personality side, both agree Imariagbe — who played at McMurray two seasons, sat out a medical redshirt year at Coastal Bend College in Texas and played a season at Houston Baptist before coming to WSU last year — is a little louder, a little more comfortable working the crowd.
You saw some of that after Wednesday’s game when the Raiders finished the handshake line with the Cleveland State players and then made a slow lap around the arena, shaking hands and chatting up everybody who sat courtside before high-fiving the group of kids who waited for them near the passageway that led to the dressing rooms.
Imariagbe was one of the last to complete the circuit. He took his time — it was the last game he’d play at the Nutter Center — and he wanted to soak in everything he could.
By the time he was done he had hugged university president Susan Edwards and gotten a hearty embrace from one of the guys on the cleanup crew waiting to work on the court.
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Pickett has blossomed since Sargent inserted him into the starting lineup in late December against Eastern Michigan.
Before that he’d come off the bench in 11 of the Raiders first 12 games.
In five of them, he averaged just over four minutes of playing time and never made a field goal. In three, he never even took a shot.
In the 20 games he’s now started in a row, Pickett has scored in double figures 10 times and grabbed double digit rebounds in five.
Over that same span — though in 19 games, not 20, because he missed the Youngstown State game at home — Imariagbe has had 13 double digit scoring games and six rebounding efforts in double figures.
The two make up one of the best big men tandems in the Horizon League.
After the game, Sargent focused on what Pickett has added to the team since becoming a starter. But he was even more emphatic in his praise of Imariagbe setting the stage for the success.
Sargent talked about Pickett’s ability to block shots — he’s third in the Horizon League — and his defensive versatility playing the power forward or “four” spot:
“He can guard Max Nelson from Fort Wayne who only shoots threes and he can guard a big man who only plays in the post. That type of versatility — to be able to defend inside and outside — is a big deal.
“Most times great defensive teams come down to the four.”
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
Pickett’s emergence has a lot to do with Imariagbe’s acceptance, said Sargent, who was just named the Horizon League Coach of the Year and deserves a lot of credit for the transformation of a Raiders’ effort that went 15-18 last season.
Sargent praised Imariagbe and the Raiders’ other two final-season players — both of them transfers — graduate guard Sam Alamutu who was part of three Vermont teams that made the NCAA Tournament and senior Bryan Etumnu, who spent three seasons at Merrimack, where he teamed with current Dayton Flyers’ players Javon Bennett and Jordan Derkack.
“That’s why our freshmen — both Kellen and (guard) Michael Cooper — are having great years. The guys ahead of them are leading with selflessness. They’re not getting so caught up about it being their senior year and it being the last thing for this or that.
“It’s just loving their teammate, loving their brother. That’s why everybody else is getting better.”
That especially showed in the Raiders’ inside game Wednesday.
It’s why that Cleveland State forward found himself in double trouble with just over seven minutes left and why the Raiders — once the final buzzer sounded — were headed to Monday night’s Horizon League semifinal game in Indianapolis.
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