Penguins hope to end road streak

The making of a good basketball team is its ability to win on the road. Youngstown State has yet to prove that.
Saturday night the Penguins proved they are a good team in Beeghly Center with a 69-61 victory over Toledo.
YSU has lost its last 15 straight road games and until the Penguins can find the key to winning on the road, especially in the Horizon League, they are destined to be in the bottom half of the conference standings.
Wednesday night the Penguins travel to St. Francis (Pa.) in a game that could bring to an end to the road losing streak -- providing the Penguins play like they did Saturday night.
Coach John Robic is excited about the way the Penguins are playing right now and for good reason.
Junior college stars
Robic brought in two junior college transfers this season, 6-foot-8 Adam Baumann and 6-7 Jamel Porter. Both are legitimate Division I post players and have proven so thus far.
The question mark for the Penguins this year has been at the guard position, but by the effort put forth by senior Marlon Williamson and sophomore Doug Underwood, that question mark could be erased.
Williamson fired in 23 points in the win over Toledo, while Underwood added 14 and the two combined for all seven of the Penguins' 3-point goals.
"We don't expect Marlon to score like that every night, but we do expect him to take control out on the court and get the ball inside like he did in the second half against Toledo," Robic said.
The 15 straight road losses is a concern for Robic, but the fourth-year coach said that he's thought about it a lot recently and feels that the Toledo win just might be the key to ending that streak.
"When I look back two seasons ago when we opened the season 4-0, I felt that our win over Western Michigan in the fourth game was the one that set the tempo for the rest of the year," he sad.
The Penguins went on to post a 19-11 record and was in contention for the Mid-Continent Conference title in the final week of the season.
Confidence builder
Last year's 5-23 record is long forgotten. The season is still young and the Penguins have a long way to go, but the confidence that Robic feels his young team gained by beating Toledo, a good team, but not the best in the Mid-American Conference, will be beneficial.
The Penguins are young this season. Williamson is the only senior on the team and the three freshmen guards -- Jonthan Mends, Andrew Jahnke and Derrick Harris -- are going to be good ones.
Those three enable Robic to spell Williamson and Underwood, while the rotation of the five inside players is the best the Penguins have had in a long while.
Baumann, Porter and junior Tejay Anderson are the leaders, but Robic also has sophomores Khari McQueen and Brian Radakovich and junior Bill Mallernee and the team doesn't lose much with them in the game.
Some felt that the Penguins would be hampered this season with only 11 players, but being able to go with any of them at any time, Robic has turned the shortage of players into a positive note.
Realistic goals
Realistically Robic's goal for the 2002-03 season was to get the Penguins back into the middle of the pack in the Horizon League and maybe even get a home game in the opening round of the tournament.
At the start of this season nobody else gave that hope much of a chance, but three games into the season that feeling is beginning to change.
Even in their season-opening loss at Indiana State the Penguins played well. One dry spell has cost the Penguins a 3-0 record.
But it still comes back to winning on the road and if the Penguins are going to have any real success this season, Wednesday game is a big one.
XPete Mollica covers YSU athletics for The Vindicator. Write to him at mollica@vindy.com.