YSU women look to keep momentum against WSU

February 5, 2015 at 12:04a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

After his team’s bounce-back win over Milwaukee on Saturday, Youngstown State women’s basketball coach John Barnes sat on his couch and watched North Carolina’s men’s team squander an 18-point second half lead in a loss to Louisville.

Barnes could relate. His Penguins were just a few days removed from blowing a 16-point halftime lead in a loss to Detroit.

“When things go awry, sometimes they go awry and you have to live with it and move on to the next one,” he said. “Going back and watching that [Detroit] film, we had a lot of open shots. We just didn’t make them. Ultimately, you have to make shots.”

That wasn’t a problem against Milwaukee. YSU shot 59.2 percent from the floor — its best shooting game since 1998 — as the Penguins finished with their second-highest point total of the season.

But Barnes has built this year’s team around defense, which will get a big test today at Wright State.

The Raiders (16-5, 5-2) lead the league in scoring at 78.3 points per game but managed just 70 in a Jan. 22 loss to YSU. WSU senior Tay’ler Mingo scored 30 points in that game but the Penguins kept the rest of the Raiders in check.

“I think Tay’ler Mingo is by far the best player in the league; I don’t think there’s anybody even close to her,” Barnes said. “We pretty much focused our whole defense on her the last time and she had 30, so I don’t know what we’re going to do differently, but we’re going to try a few different things. But we’re OK with it as long as no one else goes crazy.

“You can go one of two ways. You can let her get hers and try to stop everybody else or try to really stop her and have some of the other players score when they normally don’t score that many.”

Problem is, WSU’s complementary players are pretty good. The Raiders are coming off a 108-89 win at Oakland.

The Penguins loss to the Titans probably cost them a chance to win the regular season title — Green Bay (17-3, 7-0) isn’t going to lose three more games this year — but YSU can move into a three-way tie for second place by beating WSU.

“Mentally, we’re prepared,” Barnes said. “We believe we can beat them because we already have. We know it’s going to be a different situation because we’re on their home floor but we’re going to go in there with confidence and aggressive and give it our best.”

Today is “Kids’ Day,” which means the game tips off at noon. While Barnes would prefer to get those out of the way during the non-conference schedule, he’s glad the early start will give him more time to prepare for Saturday’s 2 p.m. game against UIC.

“For us being on the road, we’re already out of our, quote, comfort zone, so it might have more of an effect on them than us,” he said. “I don’t mind it.”