UDM’s Hot Shooting Buries Youngstown State on Monday

The Youngstown State Penguins men’s basketball team (8-6, 2-2 Horizon) couldn’t handle the hot start of the Detroit Mercy Titans (6-7, 3-1 Horizon) and lost 73-68 to UDM at Zidian Family Arena inside Beeghly Center on Monday night. It’s YSU’s first home loss since Feb. 21, 2025 against Milwaukee.

In the first half, Bryson Dawkins scored five points in a row with a three-pointer and a dunk for an early 6-2 lead. Detroit Mercy countered with a Keshawn Fisher three and a shot in the paint from Ryan Kalambay to go up 7-6.

The Penguins went through a 5:20 scoring drought before Drew King ended it with a layup for the 8-7 advantage. Cris Carroll drilled a pair of two-pointers to give the Penguins a 16-13 lead. The Titans responded with 10 unanswered points over the next 2:54 to take a 23-16 lead with six minutes left in the first half courtesy of a three from Tyler Spratt, back-to-back buckets from Kalambay and Orlando Lovejoy. Jared Lary also contributed with a triple.

Carroll put out the fire with his third three of the first half before consecutive buckets from Tyler Robinett and Jaiden Haynes got the Penguins within two at 27-25 at the 2:34 mark. The Titans answered back with a Fisher two and another Lary three-pointer to go up 32-25 at the intermission.

Detroit Mercy made their first six shots of the second stanza to go up by 18 at 47-29 just 3:49 into the last half, with London Maiden nailing the team’s first trio of shots. During that same stretch, the Titans went up by as many as 22 points at 51-29 thanks to a 13-0 run with another Maiden shot, a fastbreak shot from Fisher, free throws by Lovejoy, a three from T.J. Nadeau, a tip-in from Xavier Istomin-Monroe, and a Kalambay layup at the 15:17 mark.

However, the Penguins went on a 13-0 run of their own to get within three possessions at 51-42 with 10:34 to go with a pair of threes from Haynes, a Dawkins dunk and five-straight points from Tae Blackshear.

UDM rebuilt its lead to 15 points with five consecutive from Lovejoy before Dawkins’ three cut the deficit to 10 with 2:56 left before a Jason Nelson layup made it 68-59 with 1:22 left in the game.

After Fisher made three free throws to make it 71-59, Nelson’s three-point play and Blackshear’s third three of the game trimmed the deficit to two possessions at 71-65 with 36 seconds left. Lovejoy made a pair of free throws to put the lead back up to eight before a Dawkins layup and a Blackshear free throw closed the scoring.

The Penguins shot 32.8 percent (22-of-67) from the field, 26.3 percent (10-of-38) from three-point territory and 70 percent (14-of-20) from the foul line. Carroll led YSU with 15 points and eight rebounds, with 14 points from Dawkins and 12 points each from Nelson and Blackshear.

“I’m just, first off, really disappointed and frustrated with myself that I didn’t have our team more ready to play, more ready to execute on both sides of the ball coming out of break,” Penguins head coach Ethan Faulkner said after the game. “We got [to] have some urgency with our mentality to play every single possession of every game because all these teams in our league are very good. The rest of the schedule, every team that comes in here or every team that we go play on the road is going to be a very good basketball team.”

“We all come out, we try to play hard [and] we try to give it our best,” Dawkins said regarding the team’s performance. “Tonight, I can just say that slow start, we just wasn’t connected. Offense was really clicking for us how it usually clicks for us. We kind of got it going later on, but in this game, you can’t start late.”

Detroit Mercy second-year head coach Mark Montgomery saw his team make 42.9 percent (24-of-56) of its field goal attempts, 46.7 percent (7-of-15) of its three-pointers and 72 percent (18-of-25) of its free throws.

Lovejoy led with a match high 22 points and made all 10 of his foul shot attempts. Fisher was the only other Titan to score in double-figures with 15 points and seven rebounds off the bench. Kalambay finished with seven points, 10 rebounds and a career-high five blocked shots.

Up next, YSU continues its three-game homestand as it hosts the Oakland Golden Grizzlies on Jan. 1 for a 1 p.m. tip-off at Zidian Family Arena inside Beeghly Center.

James Moon (CashApp): $JRMoon1991