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YSU women unbeaten but not perfect
Barnes: Penguins
have work to do
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
If Youngstown State women’s basketball coach John Barnes graded the Penguins on wins and losses, he’d give them an A so far.
But he doesn’t.
“I think as far as execution and doing the little things, we’re probably at a C-plus, maybe,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
The Penguins (7-0) are off to the best start in the school’s Division I history — they went 17-0 in 1978-79 when they were a Division II program — and just posted their first 40-point win in nearly 15 years, drubbing Division III Oberlin 92-43 last Saturday.
But Barnes knows the schedule is about to get tougher, starting with Saturday’s game at Canisius (4-3), which is 5-1 all-time against YSU. The Penguins’ lone win in the series came in 1989.
“I know they’re well-coached, they work hard, they’re gonna be smart,” Barnes said “They play mostly man-to-man. They play some 2-2-1 pressure. They run a motion system where they have four out, one in, where they try to put the ball inside. They’re a good 3-point shooting team. I think they basically have four players in double figures, which makes them harder to guard.
“They’re going to be a challenge on the road.”
Weather forecast
Canisius is in Buffalo, whose epic snowstorm last month stranded the Niagara women’s basketball team on the road for 30 hours.
This weekend’s forecast looks OK.
“Thinking about the Niagara women’s team [spending 30] hours on the bus is just crazy,” Barnes said. “Hopefully we can get there and back smoothly.”
Schedule break
After playing six games over 15 days in November, the Penguins get a break in December.
YSU plays six games total this month and Canisius is the longest road trip. The other road games are against Robert Morris and Pittsburgh. The Penguins also have home games against Ohio Valley and Akron.
Because of finals, YSU has just two games in the first 16 days of December.
Barnes credited his assistant, John Nicolais, for the favorable schedule.
“He’s done a very good job on spacing out the home games and away games and trying to schedule teams that are closer in vicinity when we’re doing single games,” Barnes said. “It helps to spend more time in your own bed and get rest while you’re at home even though you may have games on the road. There are several games where we’re going down the day of, which is nice too.”