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Slocum bemoans effort in YSU loss
youngstown
It wasn’t the scoreline and it wasn’t the effort Youngstown State head men’s basketball coach Jerry Slocum wanted to see in his team’s 90-84 loss to Canisius.
“I was really disappointed in our effort and our intensity,” Slocum said. “It was very disappointing — no intensity at any end of the floor.”
The Golden Griffins (2-4) shot 52.5 percent for the game and grabbed 13 offensive rebounds in a game YSU (3-4) looked lost at times defensively.
“We had two days where we drilled [on their offense] and they didn’t do anything different,” Slocum said. “It was disappointing that we didn’t execute anything.”
Kassius Robertson came into the game averaging 11.4 points per game for Canisius and finished with 27.
“We just lost him,” Slocum said. “How can you lose him?”
Francisco Santiago echoed Slocum’s thoughts on YSU’s defensive intensity.
“If I’m driving to the basket and they go fastbreak, someone has to pick my guy up and I’ve got to hustle to get back and we just weren’t doing that,” he said.
Santiago was the main scoring threat for YSU. The junior scored 23 points on 9-of-11 shooting and also dished out 11 assists.
He also felt he had to lead the team from an emotional standpoint at the 15:18 mark of the second half with the Penguins down 12 after trailing by just six at halftime.
Santiago gave a very emotional speech challenging his teammates.
“We weren’t getting stops and it’s frustrating,” Santiago said. “We were lackadaisical and I felt like I needed to get after them.”
The Penguins trailed by as many as 17 at the 8:44 mark when Selvedin Planincic scored on a jumper, but the Penguins clawed back into it, getting the lead down to five with 2:00 to go. Free throws down the stretch sealed the road win for Canisius.
YSU’s leading scorer this year, Cameron Morse, came into the game averaging 25.2 points per game but had a difficult time against the Canisius defense. He finished with 15 points but had just four at halftime and shot just 30 percent from the field.
“Our guys did a really good job of accepting the challenge of guarding him,” Canisius head coach Reggie Witherspoon said. “We wanted to push his touches out farther away from the basket. We wanted to make sure he had no easy catches and that he couldn’t get into a rhythm.”
This was the Penguins’ fifth game in nine days but Santiago said players should be expecting to play a lot of games in a short amount of time in this sport.
“This is what we’ve signed up for,” Santiago said. “This isn’t football. It’s game after game in a short span. We know we’re going to be tired but our hearts can’t be fatigued and we can’t be mentally fatigued.”
Practice on Monday isn’t likely to be one the Penguins will look forward to experiencing.
“There will be a lot of motivation on Monday,” Slocum said. “I’m not happy. Monday is not going to be a fun day.”