Basketball Falls to Oakland, 72-64

[IAA Fan]

Rochester, Mich. -- Senior Devin Morgan scored a game-high 20 points, but the Youngstown State men's basketball team dropped a 72-64 decision to Oakland on Saturday afternoon at the O'Rena.

Junior Naz Bohannon recorded his sixth double-double of the season with 11 points and 11 rebounds and sophomore Darius Quisenberry added 14 points for the Penguins, who fell to 15-12 overall and 8-6 in the Horizon League.

Oakland improves to 10-17 overall and 5-8 in the league. Leading the Golden Grizzlies was Xavier Hill-Mais with 20 points and 11 rebounds while Rashad Williams with 17 points.

The Penguins jumped out to an 11-5 lead within the first five minutes of the game keyed by 3-pointers by Morgan, Donel Cathcart III and Michael Akuchie.

Oakland went on a 17-2 run over the next 10 minutes to take a 22-13 lead. During that span, the Penguins went scoreless for more than seven minutes.

The Penguins clawed back with a 9-0 run of their own to knot the game at 22-22 after a 3-pointer by and baskets by Bohannon, Morgan, and Jamir Thomas.

The Golden Grizzlies closed out the final 3:14 of the half outscoring the Penguins, 9-2, to take a 31-24 lead into the lockerroom.

A jumper by Cathcart and another 3-pointer by Morgan to start the second half cut the Oakland lead down to two, 31-29, but the Golden pushed the lead to 41-31 after scoring 10 of the next 12 points.

Oakland led by as many as 17 points on two occasions and the Penguins were able to get the deficit down to seven with six seconds left.

The Penguins return home to host Horizon League leader Wright State, Thursday, Feb. 20, at 7 p.m. at Beeghly Center.

[YSU1]

went to the foul line only 3 times.   shot 36% from the field.  can't win a game with those stats 

[mudclods]

went to the foul line only 3 times.   shot 36% from the field.  can't win a game with those stats

Was exactly it.  Started off fast, but went that long stretch of I think 7 minutes without scoring and even longer with only 2 points scored during the first half.  That pretty much set the tone of the game.  Went on about 3 runs after that, but could never get over the hump.  Just missed way too many short range shots that rimmed out and wide open 3's.  At one point was shooting 29%.  Twice Quisenberry stepped out of bounds with wide open looks.  Those were killers I thought.  It took him way too long to get going.  And even the one announcer said he was shooting YSU out of the game in the first half. 

Crazy thing is YSU made as many FGs and even one more 3 than Oakland plus took 17 more shots!  YSU outrebounded them and was +10 on the offensive boards...shame they couldn't take better advantage of that.  The difference was the FT shooting as they got there 18 times compared to 3 by YSU.  Crazy thing is they only made 10 of 18 too. 

Thought Morgan played well and tried to keep YSU in the game.  You have to wonder what Quisenberry did not to get the start, if he was out late or what.  It obviously wasn't as bad as Covington.   

It's just kind of how this year has went.  It would have been a huge win, but YSU just hasn't been able to get to that next level, but yet at the same time have been able to come back and win games when they've had to.  That loss basically took them out of the running of a 2nd seed and the 2 game bye as they're now 3 back with 4 to go.  Now tied for 3rd, but only one game up on 6th and two on 7th.  Really need to be able to split the home games against NKU & Wright State and then GB and Milwaukee games.   

[Double ET]

As I have posted before, our mid-range jump shots were poor for this year.
When many teams have over played on us (either man-man or zone), we were able to drive toward the basket. But, we either missed too many layups or got blocked by their bigs. When we pull up for the 10-12 foot jump shots, we couldn’t hit them either.
That 7 minutes scoreless period was “exhibit A”of that shortcoming.

[ucfpengbuck]

Made shots early and made shots very late.  In between not so much.  Glad to get a split on the road although expectations have changed which is a good thing.  Oakland seems to have good student support.  Can the powers to be get something similar at Beeghly ?

[Penquin68]

Lack of a big inside hurts us when we play teams that have one.  They just push their way backwards with the ball in on our 6-8 thinner guy and turn and shoot and get a foul call.  Doesn't seem like refs make that call correctly in my not so educated opinion.  They do that over and over and get easy baskets.  And without us having an inside presence or driving to the basket, the outside shots are contested strongly.  As said before we don't seem to be able to drive and pull up and make short range jump shots.  Too many of our players just shoot up 3's instead of trying to drive inside.  DQ does and is our best player; others don't do that much. 

Our 2 other bigs don't seem to be in much, Thomas and Penderson. Penderson has almost disappeared.

[mudclods]

I was hoping this was going to be the year we really had an inside presence; Naz was greatly improving, Thomas seemed like he could be a stud & thought for sure Ola would be more improved. In the end, Naz has really stepped up but Ola has regressed & I wonder what his future even holds. Thomas' playing time seems to have dropped as Hamperian has gotten more minutes. Both Thomas & Ola can't stay out of foul trouble when they do play. Thomas always seems to have a stamina issue. Kind of reminds me Tyree Robinson.

I've watched this team all year & I'm still not sure how the rest of the season is going to go. I thought for sure we'd take care of business with IUPUI & CSU which we did and said I hoped we'd could split the 3 remaining series which we've done the first with. Obviously the games with NKU & Wright State are going to be a challenge. I'm not sure how much better we are than Green Bay or Milwaukee and those are going to be difficult on the road. Have a feeling we'll end up 9-9 or 10-8. Think it's going to be a real challenge to win 3 or more.  I'm just not sure if we can win more than 2 straight in the tourney.