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Quisenberry injured as YSU winning streak ends
Quisenberry injured as win streak ends
By CHARLES GROVE
Highland heights, ky.
The Youngstown State men’s basketball team had an uphill battle from the beginning when they took the court against league-leading Northern Kentucky at BB&T Arena Thursday night.
The Norse hadn’t lost at home in 19 games dating to last season and then YSU’s leading scorer Darius Quisenberry went down with an ankle injury 26 seconds into the game.
Despite battling back to take the lead with under four minutes to play, NKU pulled away with a 76-69 win. The loss snapped the Penguins’ six-game winning streak, their longest since 1997-98.
Quisenberry, who was just named Horizon League Freshman of the Week for the third consecutive week officially saw the court for 9:33 of game time, but after returning from the locker room hobbling with an ankle injury he was ineffective. The point guard finished with two points on 1-of-2 shooting after scoring 37 points in a win over Illinois at Chicago on Feb. 16.
“To play without Darius for 38 minutes I give our kids all the credit in the world,” YSU head coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “They made no excuses.”
Naz Bohannon led the Penguins (12-17, 8-8 Horizon League) with 17 points and eight rebounds. Garrett Covington and Devin Morgan added 13 and 10 points, respectively.
Drew McDonald finished with 27 points 12 rebounds and was a perfect 12-for-12 at the foul line for the Norse (21-7, 11-4 Horizon League).
YSU kept things from spiraling out of control in the first half when the Norse stretched their lead out to 10 midway through to trail 38-32 going into the locker room. At that point, YSU led in points off turnovers (9-3), second chance points (7-4), fast break points (7-6), bench points (13-10) and were even in points in the paint (16-16.)
But the free-throw disparity became a burden too big for YSU to overcome. The Norse ended up 26 of 32 by game’s end at the line while YSU was only 10 of 14.
“They killed us at the free-throw line,” Calhoun said.
There were nerves in the air when YSU took the lead on Covington’s foul shot with 3:37 to play, giving the Penguins a 64-63 lead. But while YSU consistently missed shots or turned the ball over in the final minutes, NKU had quality possession after quality possession at the other end.
“We showed our youthfulness at times in the final minutes,” Calhoun said. “We took bad shots when we needed to drive and quick 3s. But you’re looking at it and you’ve got an 18-year old, and 18-year old, a 19-year old and you’re very young.”
At that 3:37 mark with YSU leading, McDonald had 18 points. By the final horn he added nine more.
“Good players make plays down the stretch,” Calhoun said. “He’s getting my vote for conference player of the year.
“We wanted to double him but when we did he went right through the double team. He’s got really strong hands, he’s fast and he’s smart. And we were out of whack when you lose a guy coming off a game with 37 points.”
Things don’t get much easier for YSU. The Penguins take on Wright State (17-11, 11-4 Horizon League) at 3 p.m. Saturday The Raiders are tied atop the conference and are looking for the top seed in the league tournament.
Calhoun said he doesn’t want to push his players too hard today in preparation for Saturday’s game.
“They played their tails off tonight,” Calhoun said of his team. “We’ve got to watch tape, we’ve got to get rest, get our feet up, do our walk-through tomorrow and hopefully [Quisenberry] is ready to go.”