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Arbanas close to milestone
By STEVE WILAJ
YOUNGSTOWN
Nikki Arbanas is on the verge of setting a Youngstown State record she wasn’t necessarily expected to threaten — especially as just a sophomore — due, in part, to putting in work that isn’t necessarily expected.
With one 3-pointer in tonight’s Women’s Basketball Invitational semifinal at Louisiana (6 p.m.), Arbanas will notch her 87th long-range shot this season to tie the Penguins school-record. With two, she’ll break Heather Karner’s 2006-07 mark and become the YSU record-holder for most made-3’s in a single season.
“It’s a lot about repetition — coming in the gym and getting a lot of extra work rather than just being here for practice,” said Arbanas, who drained six 3’s in a win against UMBC on Saturday. “I think it’s a lot of doing extra things and doing things that aren’t necessarily expected of you.
“In the offseason, I try to come in almost every day. I used to shoot on shooting machine a couple seasons ago. But a lot of the times, two of us come in and we rebound for each other and I just try to get up a good amount of shots.”
With her performance on Saturday, Arbanas became the first player in school history to make at least six 3’s in five different games for a career.
Four of those contests have come this season, as the Hickory High graduate notched seven 3-pointers each against Kent State (Dec. 12) and Milwaukee (Jan. 7), while she had another six-3 game against Oakland on Feb. 4.
She’s averaging 11.3 points per game and shooting 35.2 percent from beyond the arc — all while defending the opponent’s best wing-player each game, which is most impressive to third-year coach John Barnes.
“She’s done a great job,” Barnes said. “We ask her to guard the other team’s best player every game, so that’s a very rare thing where your best shooter is also asked to guard the other team’s best perimeter player.
“So she’s very valuable shooting the basketball and making 3-pointers, but even more-so her leadership and her defensive abilities.”
Arbanas has been firing away since her Penguins debut when she went 5 of 5 from 3-point range in YSU’s 2014-15 season-opener against Niagara. She went on to start all 32 games a year ago, averaging 8.4 points while setting the Penguins freshman-mark for made-3’s in a season (55).
“I think that teams started to realize early that that’s what I do is shoot 3’s,” Arbanas said. “But I think my teammates have done a really good job of getting me open and passing me the ball and I’m knocking them down.”
So, Arbanas enters tonight’s contest against top-ranked Louisiana with 86 3’s.
For second-seeded YSU to leave with a victory, it will likely need its sharpshooter to not only break the record, but tack on a couple more — especially if starting sophomore point guard Indiya Benjamin can’t play through her ankle injury.
“It’s very special to get a record of any sort at any level,” Arbanas said. “So it would be a really nice thing to look back on, especially in the future.”
ANOTHER RECORD
When the ball tips tonight at the Cajundome, it will start the 34th game of the campaign for YSU (21-12). That mark is going to set a school-record for most games played in a season.
“Winning games helps recruiting,” Barnes said at Monday’s press conference. “We have back-to-back 20-win seasons, nobody else in our league is still playing and, I don’t know, 85-90 percent of college basketball teams are done playing — and we’re still playing.
“So that’s obviously something for recruits to watch and see, but for us being such a young team, this postseason play really helps us for the future, too.”