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Men's Basketball vs Green Bay - Horizon League Tournament opener

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ysuindy:
http://www.ysusports.com/sports/mbkb/2011-12/releases/2012022748hzuy

The sixth-seeded Youngstown State men's basketball team (15-14, 10-8 Horizon League) opens the first round of the 2012 Horizon League Tournament hosting the seventh-seeded Green Bay Phoenix (15-14, 10-8 HL). Tipoff is set for 7:05 p.m. at the Beeghly Center and can be heard on 570 WKBN-AM.

Quick Hitters
• Sophomore Kendrick Perry was named All-Horizon League First-Team after leading the league in scoring and steals in 2011-12. He is just the fifth player in Horizon League history to lead the circuit in both categories during conference play only.
• Junior Damian Eargle was named to the 2012 Horizon League All-Defensive Team. Eargle set the Horizon League all games and conference-games only single-season blocks record with 113 and 65, respectively. He also owns the Horizon League career blocks record in conference play with 122.
• For the first time in school history, three players have made at least 50 3-pointers in the same season. Junior Blake Allen leads the team with 87 while senior Ashen Ward and sophomore Kendrick Perry each have made 51. Senior DuShawn Brooks is nearing the mark and has made 43 this season.
• With the win over Wright State, YSU has the best one-year improvement (8-win improvement) since the Horizon League went to 10 teams. Cleveland State had a nine-win improvement when the HL had just nine teams. YSU can match that with a win over Detroit.
• YSU is guaranteed its first .500 season since 2000-01 and has the most wins since 19 that same year.
• YSU had its most league wins since joining the Horizon League and most conference wins since posting an 11-5 mark in the Mid-Continent Conference in 2000-01.
• Junior Blake Allen ranks second on the YSU single-season list with 87 3-points, four shy of tying the single-season mark set by Craig Haese (pronounced "Hays") in 2000-01.
• YSU also has four players with at least 40 3-pointers made this season – a first in school history.
• Senior Ashen Ward and sophomore Kendrick Perry have both made 51 3-pointers this season. Each needs just three more to move into a tie for 10th on the single-season list.

Guins in the Tourney
Since joining the Horizon League in 2001-02, YSU owns a tournament record of 2-10. This is also Youngstown State's third home tournament game. The Guins own a record of 1-1 when hosting a first-round tournament game defeating Detroit in 2007 and losing to UIC in 2009.

The Green Bay Series
This is the 32nd meeting between Youngstown State and Green Bay in an all-times series that dates back to 1993. Green Bay owns a 24-7 advantage in the series. The two teams split the season series this year. The Guins won, 77-47, on Jan. 22 at the Beeghly Center while the Phoenix escaped with 71-65 victory on Feb. 14 at the Resch Center. This is also the fifth time YSU and UWGB have met in the tournament. Green Bay own a 3-1 edge in tournament games. YSU's lone tournament win against Green Bay was a 65-61 victory in 2003.

About Green Bay
Green Bay enters the tournament with a 15-14 overall mark and a 10-8 Horizon League record. The Phoenix, who have won five straight and eight of the last 10, are lead by First-Team All-Horizon League pick Alec Brown with 13.6 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. Freshman Keifer Sykes is averaging 11.2 points per game and was named to the Horizon League All-Newcomer Team.

KP First-Team All-League
Sophomore Kendrick Perry was named to the All-Horizon League First-Team. Below are some tidbits on Perry:
• Led HL in scoring in all games (16.8) and league games only (16.8 ppg).
• Led league in steals in conference games (2.4).
• Just the fifth player to lead the Horizon League in scoring and steals in the same season.
• Led the league with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.0.
• Ranked second in steals (2.4) in all games.
• Ranked tied for third in assists per game (3.9).
• Ranked tied for 10th with 1.8 3-pointers made per game.
• Is the first sophomore in school history to earn first-team all-conference honors.
• First YSU player since Quin Humphrey (2006-07 and 2005-06) to be named first-team all-league.

Eargle Named All-Defensive Team
Junior foward Damian Eargle was voted to the Horizon League All-Defensive Team. Below are some notes on Eargle's season:
• Set the Horizon League single-season blocks record for all games with 113 and league-games only with 65.
• Owns the Horizon League career record for blocks in conference play at 122.
• Ranks third nationally with 3.9 blocks per game.

Guins Nationally
Youngstown State is splattered throughout the latest release of NCAA statistics. As a team, the Guins rank 11th with 8.8 3-pointers made per game and 13th with 5.6 blocks per game. They are also 23rd nationally with just 11.2 turnovers per contest and 32nd with a .382 3-point field-goal percentage. Individually, junior Damian Eargle ranks third with 3.9 blocks per game. Kendrick Perry ranks 12th with 2.4 steals per contest. Blake Allen ranks 12th with 3.0 3-pointers made per game and 14th with a .437 3-point field-goal percentage.

Best HL Turnaround
With its win over Wright State on Feb. 23, YSU set a Horizon League (since becoming a 10-team league) mark with an eight-win turnaround in one season. Cleveland State set the nine-team league mark of a nine win improvement from 2006-07 to 2007-08.

KP Most Points Since Quin
With 488 points this season, sophomore Kendrick Perry has scored the most points in a single-season since Quin Humphrey scored 584 in 2006-07. Perry, who led the league in scoring at 16.8 points per game, has scored at least 20 points in seven of the last nine games and is averaging 22.8 points per game during that span. He needs just 12 points to become the first player since Humphrey to score 500 points and the first sophomore since Reggie Kemp to reach that mark in 1989-90.

Guins Set 3-Point Mark Again
With 11 3-pointers against Wright State on Feb. 23, the Guins set the school's single-season record for most 3-pointers with 254. They broke the record of 235 set in 2010-11. The previous mark of 199 was set in 1997-98.

Triple 50
For the first time in school history, three players have made at least 50 3-pointers in the same season. Junior Blake Allen leads the team with 87 while senior Ashen Ward and sophomore Kendrick Perry each have made 51. Senior DuShawn Brooks is nearing the mark and has made 43 this season.

Allen in Top 10
With three 3-pointers made against Detroit on Feb. 25, junior Blake Allen made his 134th career 3-pointer at Youngstown State. He currently ranks seventh all-time. He needs two more to move into sixth place (Doug Underwood, 135, 2001-04). He also has 87 3-pointers this season, which ranks second on the single-season list. He is six shy of breaking the single-season record of 92 set by Craig Haese in 2000-01.

Ward Now Into 5th
With 51 3-pointers this season, senior Ashen Ward now ranks fifth all-time with 149 career 3-pointers. Ward also needs two more to move into a tie for 10th place on the single-season list with 53.

KP Sets Single-Season Steals Mark
With three steals against Austin Peay on Feb. 18, sophomore Kendrick Perry set the school single-season steals mark. He now has 71 steals this season. The old record of 64 was set by Marlon Williamson in 2002-03.

A Win Will
• Improve YSU to 16-14 on the year.
• Mark YSU's most overall wins since 2000-01.
• Mark the third tournament victory since joining the Horizon League.
• Mark the first tournament win since 2007.
• Mark YSU's 10th home win of the season.
• Mark the first time with 10 home wins since 2006-07.
• Mark the program's eighth win over Green Bay.
• Mark Head Coach Jerry Slocum's 654th career victory and his 74th at Youngstown State.
• Mark YSU's 1,008th victory in the program's history.

Need to Hit the Glass
Coaches often talk of the importance of rebounding and for the Guins it is vital to success. When the Guins outrebound their opponents they own a record of 9-0.

To Catch a Thief
With a career-high seven steals against Loyola on Feb. 5, sophomore Kendrick Perry set the YSU sophomore record for steals in a season with 56. He also holds the single-season steals mark. With 111 career steals, Perry now ranks eighth all-time.

Eargle Has Chance For 1,000
In under three seasons of playing college basketball, junior Damian Eargle has scored more than 900 points with 909. Eargle needs just 91 more points to reach 1,000 for his entire career, which includes 268 points during the 2008-09 season at UNC-Greensboro. Last season, Eargle ranked second on the squad with 339 points for an average of 11.3 points per game.

Perry On His Way to 800 Points
Sophomore Kendrick Perry could become the 33rd player in school history to score 1,000 career points. In just 57 career games, Perry has scored 757 points and needs 243 more to reach the coveted plateau. For his career, he is averaging 12.7 points per game, including a 16.8 points per game scoring average this year.

Hold Under 70
Another ingredient for the Guins to be successful is to hold their opponents under 70 points. YSU is 15-4 when not allowing its opponents to score 70 points or more. When allowing 70-or-more points, the Penguins are 0-10.

The Starting Line
• The Guins have had the same starting lineup in all 29 games.
• Four starters are averaging in double figures in all games.
• Four starters are scoring in double figures in Horizon League games only.
• Each starter has posted at least one 20-point outing.

Eargle Second to 100 Blocks
Junior Damian Eargle has 113 blocks in 29 games this season, which ranks second on the YSU single-season list. He needs 26 more to set the single-season mark of 138 set by Ricky Tunstall in 1982-83. His 91 blocks last season now rank third on the list.

ysuindy:
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20120228/GPG020101/202280523/Rob-Demovsky-column-Blowout-changed-UWGB-s-fortunes

Green Bay Post-Gazette preview

Sometimes, seasons can change in the strangest of places.

Like at a Holiday Inn in Boardman, Ohio.

It was in that northeast Ohio hotel — after a disheartening 30-point loss at Youngstown State on Jan. 22 and after an ice storm stranded the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men's basketball team for the night — that things began to change for the Phoenix.

In what those present described as a difficult but necessary team meeting, players and coaches alike spoke their minds. They talked about what led to a 7-12 start to the season, which included a 3-6 record at the halfway point of Horizon League play.

"It was definitely tough," sophomore center Alec Brown said of the meeting. "But it needed to be done."

More importantly, they talked about what needed to change. Mostly, it was little things. Like when a player fell down, teammates weren't rushing to pick him up.

"That was the first thing we changed," junior forward Brennan Cougill said. "We had to sprint to pick each other up. It's all about energy with us, and we haven't been lacking energy since then."

In the act of literally picking each other up, the Phoenix also began to do so figuratively.

Since the blowout loss and the ensuing team meeting, the Phoenix won eight of its last 10 regular-season games, including a 71-65 payback victory over Youngstown State, and takes a five-game winning streak into the conference tournament, which begins tonight.

Wouldn't you know it, the Phoenix opens the tournament against those same Penguins. The two teams tied for sixth in the league at 10-8, but UWGB lost the tiebreaker, which gave the Penguins the right to host the game.

No matter what happens against Youngstown State, the Phoenix did something significant in the last month both for this season and for the future. In going 6-1 in a seven-game, 16-day stretch to close the season, the Phoenix turned what had the makings of a second straight losing season into at least a respectable one.

More than that, it was the best glimpse into what the future might look like under second-year coach Brian Wardle.

Some teams don't get better as the season goes. That Wardle's team did bodes well.

In just two seasons, Wardle has compiled three critical building blocks that some programs take years to find.

He found a big man in the 7-foot-1 Brown, who was named to the all-Horizon League first team on Monday. He became the first Phoenix player to benamed to an all-league first team as a sophomore since Tony Bennett in 1989-90.

He found a point guard in freshman Keifer Sykes, who was named to the league's all-newcomer team and was runner-up to newcomer of the year Julius Mays of Wright State, a transfer who played two years at N.C. State.

And he has a shooter in sophomore Kam Cerroni, who led the league in 3-point percentage (.468).

"Those are definitely the things you start your team with," said Cougill.

Like any coach at this time of the year, Wardle isn't thinking about the future. He's playing for now. He believes in momentum, and no team in the league is hotter than the Phoenix.

Still, he and the players aren't all that far removed from that awful night in Ohio. The next day, Wardle had a T-shirt made with the score of that game — 77-47 — printed on the back. Just to make sure no one has forgotten about it, he put that shirt in his suitcase when he packed on Monday morning.

"That game brought out a lot of stuff that needed to be said," Brown said. "Guys owned up to some stuff, and it opened the team up. We've all been a lot closer since then."

—rdemovsk@greenbaypressgazette.com and follow him on Twitter

ysuindy:
Joe Scalzo Vindy update including comments on Coach Slocum's contract situation

http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/feb/28/youngstown-state-university-mens-basketb/?newswatch


Reserve reservations: Youngstown State’s two biggest weaknesses heading into the Horizon League tournament are its rebounding (the Penguins are last in the league in rebounding margin at minus-4.2) and its bench. YSU is 9-0 when it out-rebounds its opponent, 6-13 when it doesn’t and 0-1 when the totals are equal. “We’ve got to rebound the basketball,” YSU coach Jerry Slocum said. “If we don’t, it’s going to be a short run for us.” Although YSU would have to win four games in eight days to capture the tournament title, Slocum isn’t quite as concerned about his bench. The Penguin reserves are averaging just 8.3 points per game — just 12 percent of YSU’s per-game average — and no reserve is averaging even 10 minutes per game. “I think we’ve gotten good play off our bench this year,” said Slocum, referring specifically to sophomore forward Josh Chojnacki, sophomore guard Nate Perry and freshman guard Shawn Amiker. “It just hasn’t been consistent play.” Slocum admitted there’s a disagreement about how many minutes the reserves should play. “Maybe not in their mind, but in my mind, two, four, six, seven minutes are really important,” Slocum said. “And in their mind, well, 12-14-16 is more like it, Coach. The value of three or four or five solid minutes with no turnovers and a couple of offensive rebounds and good basketball play is really, really, really crucial. And I think they’re capable of it.”

Contract update: Slocum has two years remaining on his contract at about $130,000 per year. That figure is the lowest among the team’s 10 head coaches and is lower than several assistants in the league, according to YSU athletic director Ron Strollo. Slocum coached the 2010-11 season knowing it was the last on his contract and was then extended three years soon after last season. He responded with the Penguins’ best season since joining the Horizon League in 2001-02. “I’m very happy here,” Slocum said. “I love YSU. If I have one regret in my professional life, it’s that this [success] didn’t happen three or four years ago.”

Ticket info: Tickets for tonight’s game against Green Bay will be on sale from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Stambaugh Stadium ticket office. Adult tickets cost $8 (general admission) and $12 (reserved). Those prices drop to $4 and $6 for children 12-and-younger. YSU students get in free with their ID. For details, call 330-941-1YSU.

HLecter:
Who has free tickets?  I can't afford 8 bucks

ysubigred:

--- Quote from: HLecter on February 28, 2012, 02:43:03 PM ---Who has free tickets?  I can't afford 8 bucks

--- End quote ---

DAMN OBUMBA!!  ;D I'd send you 8 bucks but I'd be afraid you'd spend it on booze.. 8)

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