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Home openers for YSU are set
By Charles grove
youngstown
Both the men’s and women’s Youngstown State basketball teams previewed their upcoming seasons and first regular-season games.
The men will take on Akron at home this Saturday at 7:45 p.m. while the women will open up home on Friday at 7 p.m. against American.
The YSU men are coming off a 100-61 exhibition win over Penn State-Behrend.
Men’s coach Jerry Slocum didn’t speak lightly about the Zips. He called them the best team his team will see this year minus Ohio State and Michigan State.
“They’re probably the best team in the [Mid-American Conference],” Slocum said. “I do believe they’re better than [Valparaiso]. I think they’ve got it all. They’ve got great guard play, two really good bigs and they bring back almost everybody back from a team that should’ve gotten an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.”
Despite the lack of cupcakes to open up the regular season, first-team preseason All-Horizon League selection Cameron Morse likes the challenge on with a tough opponent.
“I like to open up against a team like Akron,” Morse said. “We’re just as hungry as they are.
“We’re going to find out who we really are when we get hit with adversity. They’re going to go on runs and it’s just a matter of how we respond. If we respond well then that’s just how we’re going to be playing the rest of the season.”
After giving up 84.4 points per game last season, Slocum and his players said defense was worked on almost exclusively in early official team practices. Morse said he believes the defense will be much better than it was last year.
“Our defense has picked up,” Morse said. “We only allowed 61 points in our exhibition and I feel like we’re ready for Akron.”
The Akron-YSU game will be preceded by a 5 p.m. game between Kent State and Cleveland State at 5 p.m. as part of a Coaches Vs. Cancer doubleheader.
On the women’s side, YSU will without question have to play without junior guard Nikki Arbanas, who injured her knee during the first practice of the year.
But now another knee injury to last year’s leading scorer, Sarah Cash, may have them looking for scoring options against American.
Cash tweaked her knee and had arthroscopic surgery on it according to head coach John Barnes. She’s currently day-to-day.
“Ultimately it’s how the healing process comes along,” Barnes said.
With Arbanas and possibly Cash out, Barnes said he’s been pleased with how the rest of his team has stepped up as more court time is potentially up for grabs.
“When [Arbanas] went down it created that sense of urgency that they could get a lot of minutes and get into a starting role maybe,” Barnes said. “So it was good to see the perimeter players step up.”
YSU plays the American Eagles on Friday and scoring may be tough going for a team possibly missing its two leading scorers from a year ago. The Eagles allowed just 53.9 points per game last season.
“American has some good post play,” Barnes said. “They have size, their defense was solid and they look to score in the paint. From a matchup perspective, I think it’s very similar to us.”
Barnes said his team is “as ready as they can be” to begin the season and is itching to play someone other than their teammates in a meaningful game.
“We had a good scrimmage and an exhibition game but it’s about that time,” Barnes said. “The daily practice grind is coming to a point where we need to play other people.”