YSU Hoops Plays Role of Grinch in Saturday Sweep

The Youngstown State men’s and women’s basketball teams will head into Christmas break in victorious fashion following some Saturday afternoon action on the hardwood. The men’s team pulled off a 74-65 win over the South Carolina Upstate Spartans (8-7) at the Zidian Family Arena at Beeghly Center in Youngstown, OH; while the women’s team slid by a very good UMass Minutewomen squad (8-2) in a 72-69 nail-biter at the Ocean Bank Convocation Center in Miami, FL. It’s just the second time this season that Ethan Faulkner and Melissa Jackson’s teams have won on the exact same day.

Men’s game: The YSU men (8-5, 2-1 Horizon) scored the first five points of their game with a Jason Nelson layup and a Cris Carroll. Then, the Spartans countered with the next six points with a made free throw from Milwaukee transfer Learic Davis, followed by a triple and a two-point jumper from Karmani Gregory.

After that, the Penguins waddled back with an 8-0 run as Carroll and Vlad Salaridze each made two foul shots and a layup apiece. As a result, they led 13-7 at the 15:13 mark and never trailed in the game again. YSU recorded their first double-digit lead with their second 8-0 run of the half courtesy of a Salaridze three-pointer, a Nelson layup, and another three from Tae Blackshear to go up 28-13 with 10:53 left in the first half.

The Spartans’ 13-5 run cut the deficit down to seven at 33-26 with 1:52 to go after Breylin Garcia made back-to-back shots, but Carroll scored seven of the last nine points of the half with a two-pointer, a pair of free throws, and another three to give YSU the 40-28 advantage at recess.

The Penguins missed their first six shots to start the second half, which allowed the Spartans to cut the Penguins’ lead down to one possession with a pair of made free throws from Davis, a Gregory layup, and more made free throws from Carmelo Adkins. Just like that, it was 47-44 with 12:39 remaining, but that was as close as South Carolina Upstate would get.

YSU recorded a 13-5 run of their own that started with a three-point play from Blackshear, and they eventually grew their lead back at 60-49 with 9:25 remaining. Carroll had five points in that span, and Nelson recorded three points of his own before a Rich Rolf layup capped off the run.

Gregory helped South Carolina Upstate to get back within six at 60-54 and 68-62, but baskets from Carroll and Salaridze and a pair of Carroll free throws grew the YSU lead back to 12 to put the cream cheese on the bagel.

YSU won slim battles in the rebounding margin (37-34), turnover margin (14-13), and points in the paint (30-28). They also had 16 more bench points than the Spartans (27-11). The Penguins shot 42.6 percent (23-of-54) from the field, 34.8 percent (8-of-23) from three-point territory, and 69 percent (20-of-29) from the foul line.

“Glad to get a win headed into Christmas break,” Faulkner said after the game. “Thought we did some good things at times. Obviously, we had some good individual performances. As I told our guys, we gotta get fresh minds, fresh bodies, enjoy our Christmas. We’re going to get about 5 days off for them to go home, and then when we get back, we’ve got to be on a mission to get better. The teams in our league are really good. Every night is going to be hard. We got some things we gotta get better at, and we gotta have some real urgency to do that when we get back from break.”

Carroll scored a game-high 27 points on 8-of-16 shots from the field and even shot 8-of-10 from the field. He also led the men’s squad with seven rebounds and five assists. “Honestly, I’m just in a flow state right now, just taking what comes to me,” he said regarding his performance. “Whenever Coach needs me to score, whatever it is he needs me to do on the floor while I’m on the floor, I’m going to do what I have to do to help my team win.”

Vlad Salaridze was the only other Penguin that scored in double-figures with 14 points off the bench. “It’s mental lapses,” he said. “I think it’s the one thing I feel like we have to work on when we come back from break. Coach [Faulkner] said after this game, we have one non-league game and the rest of the games are league games. So every team we’re gonna play is good. So we cannot afford to have these mental lapses where we kind of don’t know what our purpose in basketball is. But our effort was there, I feel like, in the past couple of games. Our effort’s been great, so I’m happy with that.”

South Carolina Upstate second-year head coach Marty Richter saw his team make just 39.6 percent (21-of-53) of their field goal attempts, 26.7 percent (4-of-15) of their threes, and 76 percent (19-of-25) of their free throws. Gregory was the only Spartan player in double-figure scoring with 26 points (10-of-17 FG) and was one point shy of tying his career-high.

Women’s game: Meanwhile, down in the Sunshine State, the YSU women (8-5, 2-1 Horizon) had a tough test against a UMass team that was ranked 63rd in the NCAA’s NET rankings and 12th in the CollegeInsider.com Women’s Mid-Major Top 25 coming into the afternoon.

Mike Leflar’s Minutewomen scored the first seven of the game’s first nine points with consecutive layups from Megan Olbrys and Ayanna Franks, followed by a made three from Yahmani McKayle. However, the YSU women took the 9-7 lead following a 7-0 run with a three from Danielle Cameron and back-to-back layups from Erica King. After that, the two teams traded buckets before McKayle recorded the last bucket of the period to put the ladies from Amherst up 22-20 after one. In the first stanza, five of the six ties in the quarter came in the last 5:09.

Hayden Barrier and Casey Santoro started the second quarter by making back-to-back three-pointers, and UMass was held scoreless for the first 2:54 of the period before they ended the dry spell by scoring the next five points with a layup from Chinenye Odenigbo and a three-point play by Franks. As a result, the Minutewomen took what ended up being their last lead of the day at 27-26 with 6:17 to go in the first half.

YSU regained the lead with their second 7-0 run of the half courtesy of five straight points from Cameron and a Faith Burch layup to go up 33-27 at the 5:21 mark. In the last 2:22 of the quarter, Cameron went on another personal 5-0 run before McKayle hit a three-pointer to make it a one-possession affair at 40-37 heading into the locker room.

Youngstown State scored 12 of the first 15 second-half points and held UMass to one made field goal in the first 4:18 of the third quarter as they grew their lead up to 12 at 52-40, with a pair of made threes from Santoro and back-to-back layups from Sarah Baker highlighting the burst. After a Franks jumper and an Olbrys free throw, YSU scored the next six points to go up 58-43 with a coast-to-coast fastbreak layup from Gregory, free throws by Cameron, and a jump shot from Baker at the 2:36 mark. UMass scored six of the last eight points of the period, which was capped off with a Jess Ross layup to make it a 60-49 deficit after three quarters.

Baker scored on the fastbreak within the first 23 seconds of the fourth stanza to make it a 13-point game at 62-49 lead, but UMass did not allow a point for the next 4:43 and went on an 8-0 run with back-to-back layups from Olbrys and four straight points from McKayle to make it a 62-57 deficit with 5:02 remaining.

However, King scored four points on one possession to push the lead back to nine. King made her first foul shot before Gregory grabbed an offensive rebound off King’s miss of her second free throw. Santoro then made a pass to King, who sank a triple to make it 66-57 at the 4:38 mark.

UMass kept charging and scored eight of the next nine points to get within a possession at 67-65 with 1:29 remaining courtesy of buckets from Allie Palmieri, McKayle, Franks, and Olbrys. Coach Jackson called a 30-second timeout and set up a play in which Gregory fed Baker down low for a bucket to make it 69-65 with 1:10 left.

After a Baker foul, Olbrys split a pair of foul shots to make it a one-possession deficit at 70-67 with 58 seconds remaining. Then, Paulina Hernandez forced a turnover at the 42.6-second mark after locking up Olbrys down low in the paint. YSU then took possession of the ball and ran down the clock before King missed a three, but Santoro stole the ball from Olbrys after the rebound. That forced Frank to foul Baker, who hit a free throw with 11.4 seconds left to make it a two-possession lead for YSU at 70-66.

Cameron blocked Palmieri’s initial three-point try on the next defensive possession, but Palmieri redeemed herself by nailing a big-time three on the ensuing out-of-bounds play to make it a one-point deficit at 70-69 with 3.8 seconds left. Baker was fouled by Odenigbo in the backcourt with 2.3 seconds to go and made both of her foul shot attempts for the last points of the day. On the ensuing inbound pass, Lilly Ferguson couldn’t haul it in cleanly as the clock hit triple zeros.

Both teams shot 42.9 percent from the field, with UMass (27-of-63) making three more field goals than the Penguin women (24-of-56).

YSU scored 20 points in each of the first three quarters and not only won the rebounding battle by just one board (36-35), but they also made 44 percent (11-of-25) of their threes and 81.3 percent (13-of-16) of their free throws. Baker led four Penguins in double-figures with 17 points (7-of-9 FG), followed by Santoro’s 16 points (5-of-9 3-PT FG) and Cameron with 15 points (6-of-6 FT). King scored a baker’s dozen of her own and tied her career-high with four steals while playing all 40 minutes. Gregory only made one field goal in six attempts, but she pulled down a game-high 14 rebounds, recorded three steals, and tied her career-high of six assists.

UMass won the battles in turnover margin (17-13), points in the paint (34-22), points off turnovers (22-16), and second-chance points (18-7). They shot 33.3 percent (8-of-24) from downtown and 53.8 percent (7-of-13) from the charity stripe. McKayle led all scorers with a career-high 25 points and made five threes in eight attempts. 14 points, seven rebounds, and two blocks for Olbrys; 13 points (3-of-8 3-PT FG) and six rebounds for Palmieri; and 11 points and three steals for Franks.

Up next: Both squads will get a week off for the Christmas holiday before returning to Horizon League action on Monday, December 29 for a coast-to-coast doubleheader.
– The women’s team will visit the Cleveland State Vikings at 4 p.m. at the Wolstein Center.
– The men’s team will host the Detroit Mercy Titans at 6:30 p.m. at Zidian Family Arena at Beeghly Center.

James Moon (CashApp): $JRMoon1991