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Slocum, Penguins focused on future
By Jon moffett
Youngstown
There have been a lot of speed bumps and detours during the season for the Youngstown State men’s basketball team. But head coach Jerry Slocum couldn’t tell you about them.
His eyes are focused on the road ahead, not on the road behind.
“This has kind of been my motto since the summertime is to keep your eyes on the road an not on the rearview mirror,” he said. “In this business there are enough negatives from everybody who wants you to keep looking in the rearview mirror. And I have refused to do that personally and with our staff and with our kids.
“We have kept our eyes on the road ahead of us,” he added. “And there is some sun shinning down that road.”
The road ahead doesn’t exactly get any easier for the Penguins. The next pit stop is against Cleveland Sate, which sits a half-game behind Valparaiso at the top of the Horizon League.
The Penguins (8-16, 2-5 Horizon League) lost the first meeting at the Beeghly Center 61-51 last month. The Vikings (21-5, 10-4 Horizon League) have caught fire since, going 5-2 in that span. But the Vikings are coming off of a two-game losing streak.
Still, Slocum said there may not be a perfect time to play a team like Cleveland State.
“They’re a good basketball team and probably have a guy in [Norris] Cole who is having a Player of the Year type of year in the league,” he said.
Cole leads the conference in scoring with 20.3 points per game. He scored 21 against the Penguins in their last meeting. And when he’s not scoring, Cole can also dish the ball off and find open teammates. The dynamic senior guard also leads the conference with 5.3 assists per game.
“He has hands on the ball almost 80 percent of the time. Everything goes through him, so you obviously have to be able to guard him and play him,” Slocum said of Cole, who also had seven assists and seven rebounds in the first game. “But they are a good basketball team and you’re going to have to have a special kind of an effort and all phases of your game are going to have to end up clicking [to win].”
Momentum may also be on the side of the Penguins.
While the Vikings have lost the past two games to Butler and Detroit, YSU has defeated Butler, taken Valparaiso into overtime and lost a close one to Wright State. Slocum said his team is getting closer and feels better about the state of the players than he did three months ago — or even three years ago.
Slocum said this version of the Penguins is the best he’s seen in his six years at the helm. He said the young talent is continuing to develop into “Horizon League players” and should offer the Penguins with a lot of promise next year and beyond.
And the present is only going to get better.
“Kendrick Perry is a player. Blake Allen is getting better all the time. Damian Eargle, who was getting shoved around in this league early, that dude is better. Ashen Ward is better,” Slocum said. “I’m very encouraged by this team.
“You’ve got six or seven guys that are young guys, freshen or sophomores, that are, for the first time since I’ve been here, are Horizon League guys that I think are eventually going to be top players in our league,” he added.
Slocum hesitantly said he felt the Penguins could be a team that the other Horizon schools don’t want to face come tournament time. Slocum admitted that the team isn’t perfect and “has a long way to grow and to go” but is optimistic that this team can get hot at the right time.
“The encouraging thing for me is that we’re better. We’re better than we have been,” he said. “And I think we’re better than where we’ve been in a long time here.”