Lots of bad basketball Saturday

Saturday was not a good day for either of the Youngstown State basketball teams.

It’s hard to say which was worse, the Penguin women falling apart in the final 10 minutes of their 65-45 loss to Miami (Ohio) at home or the YSU men’s total collapse in a 77-54 loss at Cleveland State.

The women’s loss was probably more of a surprise since the Penguins were riding a four-game winning streak, but they haven’t been playing well in the second half even in those wins and that problem continued against the RedHawks Saturday.

In the first half the Penguins rallied from a double-digit deficit to take a 24-22 halftime lead and it appeared their trend might change, but then they came out and shot a miserable 20 percent from the field in the second half and were buried by the RedHawks.

Schedule gets
tougher now

Now with a 4-4 record and some very tough road games coming up before the end of the year, the Penguins, who had very high hopes going into this season, may find themselves entering Horizon League play in January with a losing record.

The Penguins still have non-league road games remaining at Cincinnati (Dec. 15), Ohio State (Dec. 19) and Akron (Dec. 21).

YSU coach Tisha Hill hoped for a much better start this season, especially since the Penguins returned all of their starters from a year ago and brought in several talented recruits to bolster the roster.

But things haven’t worked out the way Hill thought they would.

They opened the season on the road and lost three straight to Buffalo, Niagara and Long Island, then bounced back with a two-point win against Albany in the consolation game of the Long Island tournament. They came home and beat Toledo and had a one-point victory at St. Francis (Pa.) before holding off Central Michigan last Wednesday night at home.

Saturday’s loss is definitely going to curtail some of the confidence the Penguins had built up over their four-game win streak, but they have little time to dwell on the loss since their next three games are against opponents much better than anyone they’ve played so far.

The YSU men are in total disarray.

Men’s team just
can’t find hoop

Their biggest problem is putting the ball in the basket, which they did only 35 percent of the time Saturday against the Vikings.

Coach Jerry Slocum is concerned, but still has great confidence in his ball club. It’s not like the Penguins are taking poor shots.

“We’re getting good looks at the basket, but we just aren’t putting them in,” Slocum said Saturday.

The Penguins missed a half dozen layups and their 3-point shooting has been almost non-existent. They were 4-for-12 against Cleveland. They also had 15 turnovers, which was actually two less than the Vikings, who countered by shooting 64.6 percent for the game and 70 percent in the second half.

But again, like Slocum said, it isn’t hard to shoot that kind of percentage when most of your shots are layups.

Which brings about another question, the YSU defense.

Any coach will tell you that good shooting will inspire good defense and since the Penguins aren’t scoring, their defense has suffered along with the offense.

All that adds up to four losses in the last five games and a 3-5 overall record.

Brown’s future
bright for Vikings

It was nice to see somebody from Youngstown having a good time on the court Saturday.

Unfortunately for the Penguins it happened to be former Ursuline High standout D’Aundray Brown, who is a very promising freshman for the Vikings.

Brown came off the bench and matched his career-high total of eight points to go along with two rebounds and three assists in 17 minutes.

The YSU men will take a week off from action to finish up final exams and will next be in action Dec. 17 when they return home to meet Robert Morris at 7:05 at Beeghly Center.

XPete Mollica covers YSU athletics for The Vindicator. Write to him at mollica@vindy.com.