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YSU motors over Detroit
DJ Cole’s career-high 22 points help Penguins avenge 2013 loss to titans
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
On Saturday night, Youngstown State remembered the Titans.
A year after suffering a 41-point loss at home to Detroit, the Penguins used a career-best performance from DJ Cole and a terrific second half to pull away from the Titans 77-63 at Beeghly Center.
When asked if last year’s game motivated the Penguins, YSU coach Jerry Slocum said, “You’re not human if it didn’t.”
“I know KP [senior Kendrick Perry] was in their ear; the first thing out of his mouth [this week] was about it,” Slocum added. “You can’t have that thing happen in your own building and not have a memory of it.”
Cole, a pass-first junior point guard, poured in a career-high 22 points while making a career-high four 3-pointers for the Penguins (12-8, 3-2 Horizon League), who have won three straight conference games. Cole also tied a season-high with nine assists and grabbed six rebounds, while Perry (13 points) and sophomores Bobby Hain (18 points) and Ryan Weber (13 points) also finished in double figures.
“Oh yeah, [last year] was motivation enough,” Cole said of the 101-60 defeat. “They put up 100 points on us and it was probably one of the worst losses in YSU history.
“We showed that we didn’t want that to happen again.”
After a choppy, defense-dominated first half, YSU outscored Detroit 49-37 over the final 20 minutes. The Penguins shared the ball on offense — they had assists on 20 of their 24 field goals — and forced the Titans into a 2-for-18 performance from 3-point range.
“I thought it was your typical Horizon League [game], a hard-fought, 40-minute bloodbath,” Slocum said. “I thought we did a really good job defensively in the second half.”
Cole, whose previous career-high was 19 points, entered the game averaging 7.7 points per game and had attempted just 31 3-pointers this season. But with the Titans keying on Perry, Cole had open looks from behind the arc and made the most of them, hitting on 4 of 5.
“Tonight they were sagging off of me a lot and I got in a rhythm,” he said. “They kept going in so I kept shooting.”
When asked if he wants Cole to shoot more 3s, Slocum grinned and said, “No, no, no. That’s perfect.”
Hain, a 6-foot-10 forward/center, made his second 3-pointer of the season and made sure to celebrate, flicking his tongue and letting his wrist hang out for a few seconds while he backpedaled to the other end. His 18 points tied a season-high and came on just seven field goal attempts.
Juwan Howard Jr. had team-highs with 20 points and six rebounds for Detroit (8-12, 1-4), which is missing four starters from last year’s team, including Horizon League player of the year Ray McCallum, who was a second-round draft pick of the Sacramento Kings.
“They’re still a good team, but without Ray McCallum, they’re missing that point guard piece,” Cole said. “They’re missing a lot without him.”
Evan Bruinsma added 15 points, although YSU forward Kamren Belin made him work for most of them. Bruinsma also got hit with a flagrant foul when he hammered Perry on a breakaway dunk attempt late in the game, prompting a brief shouting match between the teams.
Afterward, Slocum made a point to quiet any talk about Bruinsma beating a dirty player.
“Bruinsma’s a classy kid,” Slocum said. “He’s been in the league for four years. There is no way in my mind that there was any malicious intent.”
After opening the season with road losses to Milwaukee (which involved a canceled flight and a long, unexpected bus ride the day before) and Green Bay (which is 4-0 in the league and is the only Horizon team with fewer than two losses), the Penguins righted themselves with a road win over UIC and a big home win over Cleveland State on Monday.
They now have two more home games next week, against Valparaiso and Wright State.
“Any time you win, it’s a confidence boost,” Slocum said. “I keep going back to the UIC game. That really set the tone for us in terms of playing with energy and playing unselfishly and we just got to keep on doing that. We’ve got two really good teams coming in next week.”
Added Cole, “Every game is going to be a grind and we know we’ve got to come to perform and come to play hard every night because this is a close league. Anybody can win this league by one or two games, so we know we’ve got to put our all on the floor every night for 40 minutes.”