YSU women look to end losing skid

February 11, 2015 at 12:08a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown State women’s basketball coach John Barnes doesn’t want two bad weeks to overshadow three (mostly) good months.

“I’m not too upset about where we are [in the Horizon League],” he said. “There are a few games that we obviously would have like to have that we didn’t get. But we got some games that maybe we didn’t deserve.

“I really tried not to get too high or too pumped up after the [non-conference] season. I knew with our youth we’d have our challenges along the way.”

The Penguins (15-7, 4-5 Horizon) have lost four of their last five games, but if there’s a bright side, it’s that three of those losses were by one possession. Of course, if there’s a dark side, it’s that they blew double-digit halftime leads in two of their last three losses.

On Jan. 28, YSU led Detroit by 16 at halftime only to lose 59-58. Then, on Saturday, the Penguins took a 12-point lead against UIC before falling in overtime, 66-63.

“I think we’re a little disappointed,” senior Heidi Schlegel admitted. “We were discouraged Saturday, but coming into practice [on Monday] I had a talk with the team before practice, just to stay positive. There’s a lot of season left, we have a lot of games left to play.”

Most of those games are against the bottom half of the conference, including two against last-place Valparaiso. The Penguins are in a four-way tie for fourth in the Horizon League. If they play well, they have a good chance of finishing third in the regular season standings behind Green Bay and Wright State.

“I think we’re sitting in good shape,” Barnes said. “Every game is critical but is any game a must-win? I try not to think about them like that. I just want us to play our best basketball. I don’t think we did that against UIC. We did some really uncharacteristic things.”

Key rematch

Tonight, YSU plays Oakland in the first half of a doubleheader at Beeghly Center. (The men play Green Bay in the nightcap.)

The Golden Grizzlies defeated YSU 85-82 on Jan. 24. Only Wright State (92 points) has scored more against the Penguins this season. YSU is third in the Horizon League defensively, giving up 61.9 points per game, while Oakland is second offensively at 70.7 per game.

“We had a lot of mental mistakes last time,” Schlegel said. “We missed help-side [defense] a lot last game. Just little things that Coach Barnes says — having a hand up on a shot or help-side or hedging on a screen. Just various things. Whatever our game plan is for the game, that’s what we needs to be focused on.”

Water cooler moment

Anyone who has watched the Penguins over the last few years may have noticed one of Barnes’ coaching quirks. Whenever he’s really upset with one of his players or the officials, he’ll walk 20 feet over to the water cooler and take a drink.

He probably drank close to a gallon’s worth of water during Saturday’s first half as the Penguins missed at least a half-dozen layups.

“You don’t want to say things that you probably shouldn’t, so it always helps for me to go take a drink of water,” he said, smiling. “Whether that [frustration] be at the referee or we have a bad turnover or whatever the situation may be, so that does help me.”

He then paused and added, “To an extent.”