It took a couple of extra games and a road trip, as well as a big game from someone who had his struggles, but Cleveland State took home the Horizon League title on Tuesday night.

The young Akron Zips have gone through quite a season, with a lot of youth and a change in personnel plans along the way. It also included a good coaching job to get a 19-win regular season out of this bunch.

As good as George Mason was, they simply weren’t good enough to stop Eric Maynor, ever-improving Larry Sanders and VCU. The Rams took home the CAA title and are off to the NCAA Tournament once again.

Towson was right there with George Mason in attempting to continue its surprise run through the CAA Tournament. But the Patriots finished with a 17-5 run to move on to the title game against VCU.

Old Dominion struggled again from the perimeter and didn’t get a big effort Gerald Lee. That gave Eric Maynor and VCU a chance in the second half, and they took full advantage of it.

Some of us used to call Old Dominion junior center Gerald Lee soft, not finishing as strong as he might at the goal, not dominating down the stretch, not winning the biggest of games. Not anymore, not after the way he led his team into the CAA semifinals.

Towson pulled off one upset at the CAA Tournament, just like last year. This time around, they added a quarterfinal win as well.

Known for defense, Wright State came out of the gates hot on offense. Then they showed their trademark defense to take over the game en route to a win over Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Tonight’s second Horizon League quarterfinal game between No. 3 Cleveland State and No.7 Illinois-Chicago turned into a shootout between UIC’s all-league senior and conference second leading scorer Josh Mayo, and theViking’s budding star sophomore guard Norris Cole.

The 6-7 game figured to be the best of the four first round games in the Horizon Tournament. It saw the 15-14 UIC Flames in the seventh spot (7-11 in conference), with early wins at Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech, visiting the improved 11-18 Youngstown State Penguins in the sixth spot (also 7-11 in conference, but with two head-to-head wins over the Flames serving as the tiebreaker).