CLEVELAND, Ohio – A major transportation hub and manufacturing center due to it being situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, beautiful Cleveland, Ohio – at one point America's fifth-largest city – will be where the Oakland Golden Grizzlies will begin the Horizon League portion of their 2022-23 season on Friday, December 2 by traveling to the Wolstein Center to battle the Vikings at 7 p.m.

Splitting their two contests in the TD Bank Classic in Burlington, Vermont on November 26 & 27, Oakland will enter Friday at 3-3, having scored a season-high 83 points in a victory over the Stonehill Skyhawks in their last action.

Riding a five-game winning streak, Cleveland State has only lost once this year, an 87-54 defeat at the hands of the then-No. 8 Iowa State Cyclones in their opener in Ames on November 7.

FRESHMAN BROOKE DANIELS QUICKLY FINDING HER STRIDE
Hitting 10 of her 11 free throw attempts, point guard Brooke Daniels tallied career-bests of 18 points and seven rebounds in the Golden Grizzlies' November 26 loss to the Siena Saints. Making her first collegiate start the following day against Stonehill, she followed this up with a 14-point, three-assist, three-board showing en route to earning Monday's Horizon League Freshman of the Week honor.

For the season, Daniels has scored in double figures three times and is averaging nine points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 21.8 minutes per game.

LINDA VAN SCHAIK LOOKS TO CONTINUE HOT SHOOTING
Few situations in sports are more uneasy than facing an opponent with a chip on her shoulder, and junior Linda van Schaik's performance in the TD Bank Classic is a shining example.

After struggling to the tune of a 3-15 outing in the Siena contest, including 2-10 from distance, van Schaik came off the bench for the first time in an Oakland uniform against Stonehill and responded with, quite possibly, the best game of her collegiate career.

Playing 32 minutes against the Skyhawks, she buried 5-11 3-point attempts and finished with 22 points, the most of her career, including the three seasons she spent in the Sun Belt Conference (SBC) with the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks, and the most by any Golden Grizzly in a game this year, narrowly edging out sophomore Kennedie Montue's 21 in the season-opening victory over the Akron Zips on November 7.

SCOUTING THE VIKINGS
Fifth-year head coach Chris Kielsmeier's team most recently played in their own tournament, the Hampton Inn Cleveland Downtown Viking Invitational, picking up victories over the Georgia State Panthers, Bellarmine Knights and St. Bonaventure Bonnies from November 23-26.

Putting up 67.2 points-per-game – only 1.7 more than Oakland's 65.5 average – Cleveland State is led offensively by junior guard Destiny Leo, who was voted the Horizon League Preseason Player of the Year this season by the conference's head coaches and is giving the Vikings 16.5 points-per-night.

Runner-up for Miss Ohio Basketball as a senior at Eastlake North High School in 2019-20 and 24^th on the Buckeye State's all-time prep scoring list, Leo leads the Horizon League in free throw percentage (.955), 3-point percentage (.340) and 3-pointers-per-game (2.7).

Senior forward Brittni Moore boasts averages of 11.7 points and a team-leading 6.8 rebounds, and Sara Guerriero, another junior guard and USF Bulls transfer, made her first start against St. Bonaventure and checks in third on the squad at just under eight points-per-contest.

TELEVISION AND LIVE STATS LINKS
Friday's action will air live on ESPN+ (subscription required), and can be accessed here.

Additionally, the Live Stats are available at this link.

ALL-TIME SERIES AND LAST MEETING
First squaring off in Oakland's first season in the Horizon League in 2013-14, the Golden Grizzlies and Vikings have played 17 times with Cleveland State holding a 13-4 edge.

Dating to December 28, 2017, the Vikings are on a nine-game win streak in the series, topping Oakland, 85-65, in the last clash between the two programs at the O'rena on February 17, 2022.

Leo scored 24 points for Cleveland State in that one, with senior Kahlaijah Dean leading the Golden Grizzlies with 17 and then-junior Breanne Beatty adding 12.

SEASON-LONG STORYLINES

NEW FACES FOR GOLDEN GRIZZLIES
Faced with the graduations of Kahlaijah Dean, Kayla Luchenbach and Brianna Breedy, who combined to average 28.7 points and 9.9 rebounds last season, the Golden Grizzlies brought in a trio of diversely talented transfers in Raquel Ferrer-Bernad, Alexis Johnson and Linda Van Schaik.

A Southfield A&T Warriors graduate, Johnson is a junior forward who played three seasons in Conference USA (C-USA) for the Marshall Thundering Herd, while Ferrer-Bernad is a graduate student point guard who came from a different C-USA program, the Florida International Panthers.

Van Schaik, another junior, joined Oakland by way of the Sun Belt Conference's Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks and projects to provide the team with another 3-point shooting threat.

On top of the program's work in the transfer portal, the Golden Grizzlies' 2022 recruiting class features a couple of high-upside players in guard Brooke Daniels, a Miss Michigan Basketball candidate a year ago from L'Anse Creuse North, and Lianna Baxter, a 6-foot-1 forward who starred at Oconto and is one of the top-100 scorers in Wisconsin high school history.

BREANNE BEATTY HEADLINES GROUP OF RETURNING PLAYERS
Appearing in all 83 of the program's games over the last three seasons, and starting all but two of them, senior guard/forward Breanne Beatty was named to the Preseason All-Horizon League Second Team on October 18.

The pride of Worthington, Ohio, Beatty is Oakland's leading returning scorer at 9.7 points-per-game in 2021-22.

In addition to Beatty, junior guard Sug Williams and guards Kennedie Montue and Aaliyah McQueen and forward Miriam Ibezim, all of whom of sophomores, are back with the program and are in line to contribute significantly right from the season's opening tip.

JEFF TUNGATE ENTERS 10^TH SEASON
Named the eighth head coach in program history on July 16, 2013, the 2022-23 campaign is the 10^th with Jeff Tungate at the helm.

Third on the school's all-time wins list with 106, Tungate and four-year veteran assistant Crystal Davis made some changes to the coaching staff ahead of this season, bringing in Golden Grizzly Hall of Famer and former Mercyhurst Lakers head coach Deanna Richard and Tim Webb, who has extensive coaching experience at both the high school and collegiate levels in Michigan, as assistant coaches.