Wins would benefit Hill

It’s too bad the Horizon League did away with the play-in game of its basketball tournaments a couple of years ago, or both the YSU men’s and women’s teams would have another home contest.

After last weekend the YSU men’s team finished in ninth place in the Horizon standings and will travel to Illinois-Chicago Tuesday for an 8 p.m. contest in the first round of the league tournament.

The Penguins played well Saturday in their regular season finale at Beeghly Center before falling to Cleveland State 65-58, finishing the season with a 9-20 record, including a 5-13 Horizon League mark.

Ten-team league
changed format

A few years ago, when there were nine teams in the league the last two seeds met in a play-in game. Now, with 10 teams, the top two seeds get byes to the semifinals, while the others have to play their way in.

The YSU women suffered a 70-59 loss to Valparaiso Saturday and remain in seventh place in the Horizon League with two road games this week. The Penguins play at ninth-place Loyola Thursday and seventh-place UIC Saturday, and can still finish anywhere between third and eighth in the standings.

The Horizon’s women’s tournament format differs from the men’s, in that the top two women’s seeds have byes only into the quarterfinals.

Right now at No. 7, the Penguins would play host to No. 10 Detroit March 10 in a play-in game. The winner of that game would advance to play No. 2 seed Wright State.

But the way the Penguins are playing right now it really doesn’t matter who the opponent is — it will be a struggle.

Coach struggling
to keep her job

Sitting at 12-15 overall and 7-9 in the league, YSU’s fifth-year coach, Tisha Hill, is probably fighting to keep her job and needs a good showing over the final two games and the tournament. This is the final year of her contract and since she hasn’t been offered an extension, a lot could be riding on these final games.

Her five-year record with the Penguins stands at 43-96 with no winning seasons and three seasons with 20 losses or more. She has already equaled her best win total of her career this season. YSU was 12-16 in the 2004-05 season.

This was supposed to be the season Hill was looking forward to as she had everybody returning from last year’s team that didn’t have a senior. At times the Penguins looked like the team that Hill expected them to be, but most of the time they have been too inconsistent, shot poorly and committed way too many turnovers for a veteran team.

Men’s team is
more competitive

On the other hand the men’s team has been competitive probably in 90 percent of their games, but they just seem to have trouble getting over the final hump.

Such was the case Saturday when they battled back from a 12-point second-half deficit to close to within three points, but when they needed to come up with the big play they just couldn’t find a way to do it.

Coach Jerry Slocum has now had 20-loss seasons in two of his first three years and unless he does some heavy recruiting things don’t look very good for next season either. He’ll lose his two top scorers once again. He does have a couple of promising freshmen and a veteran forward in Jack Liles, but just about everybody else is untested and have seen very little action this season.

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