Wednesday, January 27, 2016
By STEVE WILAJ
YOUNGSTOWN
OK, the Youngstown State men’s basketball team has been here before.
The Penguins (8-13, 3-5 Horizon League) are coming off a quality win on Sunday, downing Cleveland State by 15 points at Quicken Loans Arena behind a solid team effort.
Now, with games at Illinois-Chicago on Thursday and Valparaiso on Saturday, YSU will try to do something it hasn’t really been able to accomplish this season: string together consecutive strong performances.
“We had a great week of practice, added a couple of wrinkles and did some different things [against CSU],” YSU head coach Jerry Slocum said. “Now we have two more tough places to play.
“For us to play as well as we did — that’s a positive. Now we have to carry it over, which we haven’t done well all year. We’ll see how it goes.”
YSU’s win against Cleveland State snapped a three-game losing streak, which began on Jan. 14 at Northern Kentucky. The loss to the Norse followed a strong home win against Green Bay, which followed a bad loss to Milwaukee, which followed a high-quality win at Oakland.
Keeping up? If not, the point is that the young Penguins roster — eight players seeing their first action at YSU, as well as eight underclassmen altogether — has had trouble with consistency this season.
Other than a four-game winning streak from Nov. 23-Dec. 2, YSU hasn’t been able to notch consecutive victories.
“Consistency is always an issue with a young team,” Slocum said. “You can see it with young teams across the country. But with the freshmen, now at this stage of the year, they’re sophomores. They’ve played enough games. Now we need to be more consistent.”
Much of YSU’s inconsistency stems from whether or not it’s making shots.
In three wins prior to Sunday’s, the Penguins scored 99, 100 and 103 points. But in seven losses since Dec. 15, YSU averaged just 65 points per game.
That’s why their victory against Cleveland State was a significant sign of progress as YSU scored just 70 points and shot only 40 percent, but still won by 15 points.
“[Missed shots] is one thing, as a team, we’ve struggled with,” junior starting center Jorden Kaufman said. “But the coaches have told us to move on, forget about it, next play. Just make sure we play hard every possession – offense and defense.
“I feel like we’re going to continue this momentum throughout the next two games. I know we have two tough games coming up, but I feel like we can go on the road and get two good wins.”
UIC is certainly a winnable game, as the Flames are just 2-17 overall and 0-8 in the conference. Valparaiso (17-4, 7-1) will be a much taller task, especially after the Crusaders recently crushed the Penguins by 31 points at Beeghly Center on Jan. 18.
YSU will need a much better defensive effort against Valpo, which scored 96 in the first meeting. And that may happen with more playing time for 6-foot-7 freshman forward Devin Haygood — something Slocum hinted at on Monday.
With center Sidney Umude still injured, Haygood — who’s averaging just four minutes per game in 10 contests — played nine minutes against Cleveland State. He had six points and four rebounds while playing strong defense in a YSU’s game-deciding 16-2 run.
“[On Sunday], everybody contributed, everybody played well,” Kaufman said. “It was just a full team effort. So in order to get these wins, we just have to play together and play smart.”