YSU men must rebound better

January 7, 2015 at 12:08a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

How can Youngstown State’s men’s basketball team rebound from its 0-2 start in the Horizon League?

Simple. Rebound.

“I’m incredibly disappointed with our toughness with rebounding the basketball,” Penguins coach Jerry Slocum said. “It’s going to be a long year here if we don’t get some toughness to us because we’re not growing overnight.”

UIC out-rebounded YSU 42-28 in Friday’s 77-71 defeat. Then, on Sunday, the Penguins got out-rebounded 58-38 in a 79-64 loss at Valparaiso. While some of that is size-related — 6-foot-10 junior Bobby Hain is YSU’s only starter over 6-5 — the Penguins (9-8) also need to do a better job boxing out, senior guard D.J. Cole said.

“We’re not the biggest team in the league and we’re not going to win the jumping battles, so we got to get in and put bodies on people and move people out of the way,” Cole said. “I think sometimes the shot goes up and we all look at the rim or we look at the ball. Instead of putting a body on somebody, we just try to go and get it.”

YSU is the second-worst team in the Horizon League in rebounding margin (minus-3.2), ahead of only Wright State (minus-4.3).

The Raiders (9-7, 1-1) visit Beeghly Center on Thursday. Wright State opened conference play with a win over Detroit (70-57), then fell to Green Bay (79-55) on Monday.

“They play, which is a concern for us because Bobby is going to have to chase around some perimeter people at times,” Slocum said. “They’re tough-nosed defensive guys. They’re gonna play good half-court defense. They are what they are in terms of how gritty they are and how tough they are. We’ve got to really, really play well.”

Rotation

Osandai Vaughn has started the last three games at small forward and has played well, recording 18 points and five rebounds against UIC and 10 points and seven rebounds against Valparaiso.

“He’s really been a blessing in the last three games,” Slocum said. “We went from really struggling with any production in that spot to really having two guys in him and Cameron Morse both playing really, really well. Probably one of the differences in the Valpo game was when Osandai got in foul trouble. That clearly hurt us.”

Playoff problems

YSU will play at Green Bay at 8 p.m. on Sunday, seven hours after the starting kickoff for the Packers’ home playoff game against the Cowboys. Because the Resch Center is less than a half-mile from Lambeau Field, the Penguins won’t have access to the arena until Sunday night.

When asked if the Horizon League should avoid scheduling weekend games at Green Bay in January, Slocum said, “Wouldn’t you think? Huh? I mean, c’mon.

“We didn’t get the schedule until late September and the first thing that we saw [was that game] and said, ‘Oh, no.’ I mean, literally, Kevin [Bruinsma, director of basketball operations], within five minutes that we saw the schedule, our first call was to Green Bay. We’ve got to get [hotel] rooms. I mean, why aren’t they on the road that weekend? Common sense, right?”