43
Penguins rally to edge Chicago
Photo
YSU's #1, DeAndre Mays drives down the court past UIC's #41, Scott VanderMeer, during a matchup at YSU's Beeghley Center Thursday night.
By Pete Mollica
YSU overcame a 13-point deficit for a Horizon League win.
YOUNGSTOWN — Look out Horizon League, the Youngstown State men’s basketball team finally finished a game strong and appears to be headed on a roll.
Down by as much as 13 points in Thursday’s first half, the Penguins rallied to outscore Illinois-Chicago by 17 points in the second half and posted an 80-70 victory before 1,557 fans at Beeghly Center.
YSU (5-9, 2-3 Horizon) won for the third time in four games and according to head coach Jerry Slocum, “played the best second half of basketball since I’ve been here.”
The Penguins struggled in the first half, shooting just 35.5 percent from the field and trailing by as many as 13 point, 38-25, late in the first half.
They rebounded with some good shooting, great defense and some near-perfect free throw shooting down the stretch.
“We’ve been in this situation all season long, but never really finished those games and tonight we finished and we did it in a big way,” Slocum said.
“The last five games I’ve seen this team mature and I’m so proud of them,” Slocum said. “They’ve never quit and they just have kept on working hard every day.”
Once again, junior Kelvin Bright led the way for the Penguins with a 23-point effort. Fourteen came in the second half, 11 in the final 10 minutes.
He was joined in double figures by three other Penguins — senior Jack Likes with 12, sophomore Vance Cooksey with 12 and junior Dallas Blocker with a career-high 11 points and eight rebounds.
“I thought that Dallas and Vance had outstanding efforts for us tonight,” Slocum said.
Blocker said, “It’s all about taking care of your home court. We’ve set a goal to win all of our home games this semester and we got it started tonight.”
Slocum said, “You’ve got to protect your home floor in this league. We did a great job of focusing on the home game, but as I’ve said before you are only as good as your next game, so we’ll enjoy this win for an hour or so and then get ready for Saturday.”
The Penguins never got going in the first half. They took a 9-6 lead with 17 minutes left, but then the Flames (8-6, 1-3) took over the lead 12-11 with 16 minutes left and didn’t trail until midway in the second half.
UIC was led by the league’s top scorer Josh Mayo, who finished with 20 points, and the league’s top rebounder in 7-foot center Scott Vandermeer, who had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. It built its biggest lead at 38-25 with 1:49 remaining on a Vandermeer put back.
Bright hit a 3-point goal and then added a conventional three-point play in the finals seconds to cut the halftime deficit to 38-31.
The Flames managed to hang onto the lead through the first 10 minutes of the second half, but two straight baskets by Bright tied the game at 50 with 10:05 remaining and YSU took its first lead since early in the game on a 3-point basket by Cooksey with 6:36 left 57-55.
And for the first time this year, the Penguins never let up, jumping to a six-point lead (66-60) with four minutes left. In the final three minutes, they connected on 10 straight free throws and made some big defensive stops on the Flames as the lead kept mounting.
The Penguins shot 55.6 percent from the field in the second half and outrebounded the taller Flames 34-31, while also connecting on 22-of-26 free throws. They also had just eight turnovers and none in the final 10 minutes.
The Penguins will face another big test when they play host to Loyola on Saturday at 7:05 p.m. at Beeghly in the second game of a doubleheader.
mollica@vindy.com