YOUNGSTOWN – If there was a time Youngstown State needed to make a stand, that time is now.
The men’s basketball team is in eighth place in the Horizon League, but had two close games against UIC and Milwaukee this month that could’ve made this team 5-4 and a half-game out of fourth place.
The top six teams at the end of the regular season have to win three games in the March 3-7 postseason tournament at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit to advance to the NCAA Tournament.
YSU is 3-6 in the Horizon League and 9-13 overall and has five of its next seven games at the Beeghly Center — starting tonight against last-place Cleveland State (6-15, 2-7), starting at 7.
The Vikings have won four of the last five against YSU, the exception being CSU’s home game last season at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. That was one of the Penguins’ best defensive performances in recent memory.
As good as YSU is offensively, scoring nearly 80 points per game, the Penguins are near the bottom of the league defensively, surrendering more than 86 points per game.
“We know they’re going to play hard, going to play physical and pick you up full-court over the floor,” YSU coach Jerry Slocum said. “That’s their M.O. They’ve had games in the 50s.”
CSU averages 66 points per game, dead last in the league, but is second in defense — allowing 68 per game.
The Penguins cannot think they can get away with simply outscoring this opponent. They need, like the game last year in the Q, to make some stops. YSU did make some of those necessary moves in last week’s game at Green Bay, winning for the first time since a first-round post-season game in 2003.
The Penguins limited the Green Bay offense to 44 percent from the floor and won the rebounding edge.
Maybe it had to do with the easier travel schedule this season. Last year, YSU had a nightmarish delay in Chicago, delaying it almost 10 hours from getting to Green Bay. No time to practice in Green Bay’s Resch Center.
“It was our best trip up there, to be honest with you,” Slocum said. “It was 40 degrees. Normally you’re waiting for the dog sleds to show up. Normally we don’t get to practice in the Resch. We had two really good practices there before we played. For all intensive purposes, it was about as smooth a trip as we’ve had.”
It should’ve been a sweep in Wisconsin, which would’ve been the Penguins first in school history of Green Bay and Milwaukee. YSU couldn’t complete the sweep of the Panthers, losing in overtime.
The Penguins couldn’t hold on to a nine-point lead with 6:36 remaining in regulation as August Haas drove through YSU’s interior defense and missed a layup in the final seconds, as YSU’s Devin Haygood was there to swat it away. Milwaukee’s Brett Prahl grabbed the offensive rebound and quickly heaved up a putback to send the game into overtime. There, the Panthers outscored the Penguins 19-10 to win in overtime.
“Last shot of game, Dev (Devin Haygood) made a great block,” Slocum said of the final six minutes. “Kid caught it, walked underneath the basket, took four steps and threw up a prayer. It went in to tie it. I thought we were deflated going into overtime, lost our focus a little bit because I thought that we played so well.
“I wouldn’t have change a lot except a call or the courage to make a call.”
That game, combined with losing in overtime to UIC earlier this month — two games that slipped away from the Penguins — could’ve made this team 5-4 in the league.
Five of the next seven games, including the next three, are at the Beeghly Center. YSU has to take advantage as it hosts CSU, Oakland, Detroit, Wright State and Northern Kentucky in home games next week. Then, there’s a road game at UIC in this stretch — a good time to exact revenge in Chicago, a place the Penguins have won before. Except for first-place Valparaiso (16-4, 6-1), most of these other teams in the league are very beatable.
YSU has had five players reach double figures the past two games. The rebounding and assist-to-turnover ratio is good as well, but YSU needs to play better defense. Giving up 86 a game won’t translate into too many wins. You can’t count on offense to outscore an opponent.
“The thing that hurts is that you don’t get the benefit of your effort,” Slocum said. “I think that’s been the case of our UIC game. Obviously the Milwaukee game there. It is what it is. We’ll keep getting better. That’s the encouraging thing for me. We came out of last week better than we played the week before.”
The top six in the Horizon League is well within YSU’s reach.
That starts with a win tonight against Cleveland State. YSU is 1-2 at the Beeghly Center in league play.
“We’ve got to play better at home,” Slocum said. ” We’ve got to take care of our home floor. With the landscape of the league, the team that gets hot in February is going to win. Everybody has proven they can lose. Everybody has proven that somebody can beat them. You’re on a neutral floor. My goal is for us to get better and peak at the end.”
The Penguins are playing well, but they need to translate that into victories — not another 20-loss season. This team is much better than that.
