YSU men get sweep in Chicago

What a weekend for the Youngstown State men’s basketball team.

The Penguins won back-to-back league road games for the first time since 1998 and they also won for the first time ever at the UIC Pavilion on Saturday after 10 straight losses.

Two straight wins anytime or anywhere is pretty good for the Penguins, who have not exactly been dominant in the Horizon League since joining in 2001.

The Penguins made things tougher than necessary Saturday by blowing a 21-point first-half lead. They let the Flames tie the contest 52-52 with just under eight minutes left, but outscored them 16-6 the rest of the game.

“I told our kids during a timeout after they had tied the game that if somebody had told me we would be tied with this team with less than eight minutes left before the game I’d have taken it,” said YSU coach Jerry Slocum. “Forget about blowing the lead and just go out and finish this game and we did.”

The Penguins, who haven’t exactly been setting the world on fire at the free throw line, made 7-of-8 charity tosses in the final 58 seconds to secure the victory.

The Penguins (8-15, 5-8) have sole possession of sixth place in the conference standings. The three, four, five and six seeds will all host first round league tournament games.

The Penguins still have a ways to go before they start selling tickets for that game: five more league games to be exact, three of which are on the road. But, then the Penguins have as many wins on the road this season as they do at home.

Next up is the league’s No. 2 team, Green Bay, which comes to Beeghly Center on Thursday followed by Milwaukee on Saturday. Both games are at 7:05 p.m.

The YSU women’s basketball team is on track to set quite a few records this season. Unfortunately they aren’t the records you want to talk about.

Saturday afternoon the Penguins suffered their 20th season defeat, the quickest any YSU women’s team has reached the 20-loss plateau in a season.

The previous worst was the 2003-04 team which recorded its 20th defeat on Feb. 14 and went on to post a 4-24 record. This year’s team is on track to break that record also.

The Penguins (2-20, 0-11 Horizon League) have had enough problems this season, but now they are without their leading scorer/rebounder, senior Nikita LaFleur, who could be out a while with an ankle injury.

Their second leading scorer/ rebounder, senior Tiara Scott, missed Saturday’s contest to attend a family funeral.

The result was a 78-51 loss at Milwaukee where the Penguins were outrebounded 52-35 and outscored 38-14 in the paint.

It was another rough weekend for the Penguins who were defeated 79-42 Thursday at Green Bay, but at least the Phoenix are the best team in the Horizon League. Milwaukee is just middle of the pack this year despite having the league’s top scorer, Traci Edwards.

In the two games over the weekend the Penguins were outscored by 64 points. They have lost 12 straight and stand a good chance of surpassing the school’s all-time losing streak of 14 set by the 1993-94 team.

The Penguins don’t play again until Saturday when they travel to Cleveland State for a 5 p.m. contest. But, the Vikings showed them no mercy when the teams met in Youngstown on Jan. 17. They routed the Penguins, 80-51.

YSU’s first-year coach, Cindy Martin, has tried just about everything to get things turned around, but nothing has worked.

The Penguins play well in spurts, but no matter how hard they play it still boils down to one thing: their inability to put the ball in the basket.

They had one of their best shooting games of the season Thursday against Green Bay, hitting over 47 percent from the field in the first half. They trailed 54-24 as the Phoenix shot a blistering 71 percent. YSU then shot 14 percent in the second half (3-of-21). They shot 26 percent in the loss at Milwaukee.

If the Penguins could win on effort they’d probably have a winning record. It is amazing that they are still so motivated despite the long losing streak. Martin has to be credited for being able to keep her team trying so hard game after game.

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