The Youngstown State women's basketball program showed definite signs of growth during the 2010-11 season under first-year head coach Bob Boldon. The year brought many accomplishments on both the team and individual levels. Those highlights are listed below.
-- YSU went 6-24 for the year and 4-14 in Horizon League play. The six wins were double the previous two seasons combined. YSU had just one league victory over the past two years.
-- Bob Boldon led YSU to its biggest win increase ever (six) under a first-year head coach. Jeff Cohen is the only other first-year head coach to increase the win total from the previous year. He led YSU to 11 wins in 1982-83, a one-win increase from 1981-82.
-- The Penguins finished the season winning three of their final seven contests. The three wins in that four-week span matched the program's win total of the previous two seasons combined. YSU had shots in the final 20 seconds in three of those losses that would have tied the game.
-- YSU improved its scoring margin from 2009-10 from minus-25.8 to minus-10.6. That 15.2-point improvement is one of the five best in the country.
-- YSU set new school records with 205 3-pointers made and 744 3-pointers attempted.
-- The Penguins trimmed their turnovers by 3.3 per game from 2009-10 and forced 2.3 more per game. YSU's plus 2.3 turnover margin ranked second in the Horizon League.
-- YSU was outscored 507-505 off turnovers in 2010-11. That is an enormous improvement from the previous year when the Penguins were outscored 630-370 off miscues.
-- The Penguins finished with 92 more steals than their opponents, which was a big improvement from last year when YSU had 83 fewer thefts than its opponents. The last time YSU finished a season with more steals than its opponents was in 2001-02.
-- The Penguins went 2-0 against Valparaiso, earning their first sweep of a conference opponent since 2007-08. YSU also picked up conference wins against Loyola and UIC.
-- YSU continued to get better as the season progressed, demonstrated by shooting better than its season field-goal percentage in 15 of its final 18 games.
-- In the Penguins' Senior Day victory, five players scored in double figures for the first time since the 2003-04 season.
-- YSU set a school record by going 17-for-17 from the free-throw line against UIC on March 3. The only other time that the Penguins went at least 10-for-10 from the stripe was when they made all 13 attempts at Oakland on Feb. 6, 2007.
-- Sophomore forward Brandi Brown had one of the best seasons in school history. She was named Second-Team All-Horizon League after finishing the regular season as the league's top scorer. Only two other players in school history have won a conference scoring title. Brown averaged 19.9 points overall and 22.6 points during league play. Brown was named the Horizon League Player of the Week a league-best three times.
-- Brown scored 597 points, which is the fifth-highest single-season total in school history. Brown has scored 939 points in her first two seasons on campus. That is the most ever by a Penguin through two seasons. She already ranks 18th on the Penguins' all-time scoring list.
-- Brown tied a school record by going 12-for-12 from the free-throw line against UIC on March 3. She finished the season making 35 of her final 36 attempts from the charity stripe.
-- Junior Kenya Middlebrooks made 60 3-pointers, which is the seventh-most by a Penguin in school history. She had 26 treys in her first two seasons combined. Middlebrooks also tied a school record by making seven 3-pointers in a game. In fact, she did it twice – at UIC and against Valparaiso at home. Only one other player in school history made seven treys in a game twice.
-- Tieara Jones, a junior transfer in her first season, led the conference in blocks with 1.3 per game. Her 39 blocks are the seventh-most for a season in school history and the third-most by a junior.
-- Jones and Maryum Jenkins became the first pair of Penguins to record at least 60 steals since the 1997-98 season.
-- Liz Hornberger and Monica Touvelle became the first pair of freshmen in school history to make at least 25 3-pointers.
