Cleveland State University Men’s Basketball Program

Gary Waters has turned this basketball program around.

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Cleveland State University’s men’s basketball program has seen its best days in many years. Led by Head Coach Gary Waters, CSU’s men’s basketball program has been extremely competitive over the last six seasons.

Weaknesses: Routinely plays in front of small crowds of 2,000 to 3,000 per home game. Their home games are played in The Wolstein Center which has a seating capacity of 13,610. The Wolstein Center is a large sized facility but they consistently have very small crowds for college basketball games.

I would think it would be hard to attract major college talent to the CSU’s men’s basketball program because of the low turnout for home games.

The CSU campus is located in downtown Cleveland and doesn’t have that real college town atmosphere. The college itself does not have a real on-campus feeling because most of the students go home at the end of the day.

Strengths: Head Coach Gary Waters has turned this basketball program around in the six seasons as head coach. It is clear that this coach is a proven winner and has consistently kept this basketball program competitive during his tenure.

The record:

2006-2007 10 wins 21 losses

2007-2008 21 wins 13 losses

2008-2009 26 wins 11 losses

2009-2010 16 wins 17 losses

2010-2011 27 wins 9 losses

2011-2012 22 wins 11 losses

CSU men’s basketball program, under the direction of Gary Walters, made it to the NCAA tournament in the 2008-2009 season. They’ve also had three appearances in the NIT: 2007-2008; 2010-2011:, and 2011-2012 seasons.

Under coach Waters, the program has sent one player to the NBA; Norris Cole is currently playing for the Miami Heat.

Overall thoughts: The Cleveland State University men’s basketball program is one of those odd basketball programs that have a great basketball facility but don’t attract large crowds for games. They don’t play on TV enough to gather interest from high level recruits. They have been consistent winners under coach Waters but real success comes from consistently appearing in the NCAA tournament which they’ve only done once during the 2008-2009 basketball season.

The only way this program will ever be a major player in college basketball is that they have to consistently reach the NCAA tournaments to attract major basketball talent from around the country.