BUZZER-BUMMER | Last-second miss and OT struggles doom Penguins against Panthers

Photo by: Rami Daud

The Vindicator (Youngstown)

Photo

Youngstown State's Damian Eargle (21) dunks and scores against Milwaukee at the YSU Beeghly Center Saturday afternoon.

By Joe Scalzo

scalzo@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

If fairy tales ended like YSU men’s basketball games, the hare would catch the tortoise, Cinderella would get dumped and Baby Bear would eat Goldilocks.

In a game that pretty well summed up most of the season, the Penguins missed a tip-in at the buzzer at the end of regulation and went cold in overtime, falling to Milwaukee 94-87 Saturday afternoon at Beeghly Center.

“We made enough plays to win it, we made enough plays to lose it,” YSU coach Jerry Slocum said. “The guys battled right to the end.”

The win gave Milwaukee (18-12, 13-5) an improbable Horizon League regular season title. The Panthers were 4-5 in the league on Jan. 21 before winning their last nine league games, including two in overtime.

The Panthers had everything to play for. YSU’s only motivation was the chance to break a last-place tie with UIC.

On paper, it was a mismatch.

“That was the scary part,” said Milwaukee coach Rob Jeter, who also led Milwaukee to the 2006 league title. “As a coach, you know it’s the opposite. You know Youngstown beat Butler. You know that team took Valpo to overtime.

“It’s really easy to say, ‘Ah, let Milwaukee come in here and roll the balls out,’ but it was the opposite. That team [YSU] fought hard every game.”

The game featured 18 lead changes and 21 ties, the last of which came with 15 seconds left, when Milwaukee’s Tone Boyle split a pair of free throws to make it 82-82. Vytas Sulskis rebounded the miss and Slocum opted not to call timeout, instead getting the ball to freshman guard Kendrick Perry, who has turned into the team’s clutch shooter.

Perry drove inside and threw up an awkward layup attempt in front of the basket that missed. Just before the buzzer, YSU’s Damian Eargle grabbed the rebound and, as he fell away to the left, threw up a shot that hit the top of the backboard square, then hit the front of the rim and bounced out.

“Oh man, I just kept waiting for that red light to show with the ball below the rim and not above the rim,” said Jeter. “It happened to be above the rim when that red light went on and it looked close.

“I was just praying it would bounce out and it did.”

Panthers guard Ja’Rob McCallum hit his seventh — and final — 3-pointer of the game to open the overtime period and YSU seemed to press from that point on, hitting just 1-of-9 shots in the extra session, including 0-of-6 from behind the arc.

“We played a very good basketball game except for overtime,” said Slocum. “We ended up taking too many 3s.”

Blake Allen made six 3-pointers and finished with a career-best 26 points for YSU (9-20, 2-16), which finished with 16 league losses for the second straight year. YSU will be the ninth seed in the tournament and will open at Valparaiso on Tuesday.

“This would have been a nice momentum builder,” said Allen. “But we feel like we’re capable of playing anybody.”

Anthony Hill had 23 points and eight rebounds and McCallum also scored 23 for Milwaukee, which was picked to finish fifth in the league’s preseason poll.

“I don’t think there was anyone in the league that thought they were gonna come in here and have an easy time of it,” Slocum said.