League play on Horizon for YSU

For nearly six months all the talk on the Youngstown State University campus has been about the Penguins joining the Horizon League for all sports other than football.
The main talk involved the step-up in competition from the Mid-Continent Conference, which the Penguins had been members of for the last nine seasons.
While the YSU men's and women's basketball teams get set to make their initial appearance in the new league this week the expectations aren't any higher for these two teams than it has been for the volleyball or soccer teams, which hardly made much of an impression in their first seasons.
The Horizon League is formerly the Midwestern Collegiate Conference, and its members include Butler, Detroit, Cleveland State, Wright State, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, University of Illinois-Chicago and Loyola (Chicago).
The conference has been competitively rated higher than the Mid-Con and this season even has a Top-25 caliber team in Butler, which is undefeated going into league play.
Both teams struggling: The problem facing both YSU basketball teams this year is that neither would be capable of competing strongly in the Mid-Con, let alone the Horizon League.
The men have compiled a 2-8 record in pre-league play and were 0-4 against Mid-Con opponents. The women are not much better at 3-7 and they also were 0-4 against their former league members this season.
The men at least ended pre-league play on a positive note, playing perhaps their best basketball Sunday at Western Illinois in an 84-79 loss.
Coach John Robic feels that his team has made improvement and he's happy at where his Penguins are now entering league play.
"We are still a struggling team," he said, "but we're going into the league on a positive note. Even though we lost, I'm happy with where we are going up against Milwaukee on Wednesday."
Robic played the first seven games of this season without his most-athletic player, 6-foot-6 sophomore TeJay Anderson. Anderson has played the last three games and has gotten better each game and could help to turn this team around.
The loss of senior guard Rafael Cruz was another big blow to the Penguins, and they're hopeful he'll be back in action in a couple of weeks.
Freshmen inconsistent: Senior guard Ryan Patton has been a steady force in the lineup this year, but the team still needs some upbeat performances from its freshmen, Doug Underwood, Jimmy Moore and Brian Radakovich, who have all played well in spurts, but not consistently.
The YSU women, on the other hand, seemed to be playing better at the start of the season.
The fact that the Penguins had to play nine straight away games -- they've completed eight and are 2-6 on the trip -- has not helped the cause.
Injuries have also hampered coach Ed DiGregorio's Penguins. Freshman standout Barbora Fabianova missed several games and most of pre-season practice with an ankle injury. Then, junior point guard Maggie Johnston went down with an ankle sprain three games into the season, and freshman Jen Perugini, who was leading the YSU attack for much of the season, also suffered an ankle sprain and missed three straight games.
All three of them are back in action now and DiGregorio is hoping that he can keep them together long enough to get the chemistry between them flowing.
He'll find out Thursday night when the Penguins play their ninth straight road game, but it will also be the Horizon League opener, at Cleveland State University at 7 p.m.
Both YSU teams will be at home on Saturday with the women playing host to Butler at 5:15 p.m. and the men taking on Wright State at 7:35 p.m.
XPete Mollica covers YSU athletics for The Vindicator. Write to him at mollica@vindy.com.