Penguins fend off IUPUI in conference battle
Trending
INDIANAPOLIS -- As Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" played at the Indiana Farmers Coliseum at halftime, IUPUI was showing it could perhaps be the team's theme song.
Dressing just six players and winners of just two games -- neither of which were against Division I opponents -- the Jaguars gave Youngstown State all it could handle Thursday night.
In the end, though, the Penguins managed a 61-55 victory to stave off what would have been a disastrous Horizon League loss.
YSU has now won three consecutive games, and leads the all-time series with IUPUI 16-2. Youngstown State (13-10, 7-6) remains undefeated when visiting the Jaguars at 8-0.
"First of all, give IUPUI a lot of credit. Their kids never quit. They only had six guys, and I thought they played phenomenal. I thought it was one of their better games," YSU coach Jerrod Calhoun said.
YSU did get the start it was looking for, as the Penguins raced out to a 19-8 lead by the under-12. That effort came largely from Myles Hunter who scored eight of his 12 points by then. It was Hunter's second-straight game in double figures.
"Myles was great last game. I thought him and Daniel Ogoro were big," Calhoun said. "Daniel does a lot of things that don't show up in the stats. I thought he really guarded, and I thought he made some critical plays on defense, so I give those two kids a lot of credit."
But foul troubles allowed IUPUI (2-18, 0-9) to answer. Shemar Rathan-Mayes and Dwayne Cohill each saw limited action in the first half after picking up two fouls, and the Jaguars rallied from a 28-16 deficit with an 18-2 run to take a 34-30 advantage early in the second half.
"That really hurt us," Calhoun said of the foul troubles. "I probably have to do a little better job of playing guys with two fouls, maybe alternate those guys a little bit. (I'm) a little conservative in that department. I've been burned on the other end, but it definitely changed the game."
Youngstown State stabilized, though, using a 10-2 run to retake the lead at 40-36, which it didn't relinquish the rest of the way.
Cohill led the second-half effort, scoring nine of his 14 points after the intermission. He was YSU's leading scorer, and it marked his ninth consecutive game in double figures.
It wasn't the Penguins' sharpest performance from the field -- 20-of-49 overall and just 5-of-20 from 3-point range. Youngstown State had begun the game 10-for-17.
In his return from a one-game suspension, Rathan-Mayes added 11 points. Michael Akuchie added a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
"Dwayne was really good down the stretch, and then Mike got a lot of big rebounds, and I thought Shemar competed," Calhoun said.
B.J. Maxwell was IUPUI's leader at 22 points, while Bakari LaStrap added 15.
YSU's defense played a critical role in the effort. The 55 points given up were the second-least the Penguins have allowed in a Horizon League contest all season. The lowest was the 50 given up to Green Bay last week.
In addition, the Penguins scored 16 points from 17 IUPUI turnovers. The Jaguars recorded just six assists.
That was critical, according to Calhoun.
"We knew they were going to stretch possessions. As the game got later and later and it was close, they're going to run the shot clock down," he said. "So if you press and don't get a steel or force them to shoot a quick shot, they really extended the game. ... When we did turn them over, that was the difference, and we told our guys this is a team that if we can turn them over, we're going to be able to go convert."
Youngstown State also held a significant advantage at the charity stripe, going 16-for-20 to IUPUI's 4-of-10.
The game resembled what YSU's entire 2020-2021 season felt like, as less than 10 fans found their way to the Indiana Farmers Coliseum in the midst of Winter Storm Landon. The announced attendance, however, was 420.
Two of the other Horizon League games scheduled for Thursday -- Oakland at Northern Kentucky and Detroit Mercy at Wright State -- were postponed to tonight due to travel complications for the visiting teams.
"One of the stranger 48 hours and one of the weirder environments. It was like we were back in COVID," Calhoun said. "But I'm proud of our guys."
YSU will continue its brief, two-game road swing Saturday at Illinois-Chicago.
jwhetzel@tribtoday.com