Defensive battle awaits: Youngstown State set to collide with Green Bay
Trending
YOUNGSTOWN -- One tough matchup followed by another.
The going isn't easy this week for Youngstown State, as the Penguins are coming off a disappointing 64-61 loss to IUPUI and will be tasked with rebounding against one of the Horizon League's premier teams in Green Bay on Friday night (8 p.m., ESPN+, 570 AM WKBN).
"I think we had won 11 of our last 12 or something like that, so we've definitely been playing well and winning games. You're going to have an off night, and in this league -- I've said it over and over -- you have to be ready every night and play well, or you're going to get beat," YSU coach John Barnes said. "I think we still control our own destiny. We have to just play well and beat the teams that are ahead of us in the league but we can't slip up against teams that are behind us. So right now we're just focused on Green Bay and trying to play our best game there."
The Penguins (12-5, 6-2 Horizon League) certainly will need their best efforts as they take on a Green Bay (14-3, 7-1 Horizon League) team that features the conference's No. 1 defense and sits atop the conference standings. The Phoenix allow just 53.9 points per game. YSU is second at 55.7.
In addition, Green Bay's stingy defense has kept opponents to just 33 percent from the field overall -- best in the Horizon -- and the Phoenix rank second in 3-point field goal percentage allowed at 26.7 percent.
"They're just really tough kids," said Barnes, who served as Green Bay's associate head coach before taking the YSU job in 2013. "They're all fairly tall, long, athletic, and they switch on everything, which not a lot of teams do. That makes it a little tougher to run your sets and things that you want to run, and Coach (Kevin) Borseth has been there for a million years, and he's a very good coach, and that always helps."
YSU, meanwhile, is seeking to rebound from a game against IUPUI in which it went an abysmal 13-for-34 on shots inside the arc, nearly all of which were taken at or near the rim. And, Barnes noted following the loss, the Penguins allowed IUPUI to get comfortable and shoot well.
Those two issues will need to be cleaned up as the Penguins get set for a Phoenix team that's shooting 34.6 percent from 3-point range and, as mentioned, defends well.
"They have a lot of players that can shoot it," Barnes said. "When you run into a team with a good post player like IUPUI and Green Bay, and they put a bunch of shooters around them, it can be really hard to guard. ... We're just trying to dial in and play the best possible defense we can. And then offensively, Green Bay makes it so tough on you to get scores, so you have to take advantage of every opportunity you get."
Sydney Levy paces the Phoenix at 10.8 points per game, while Maddy Schreiber scores 9.9 points per game. Green Bay is well-rounded, as five players are scoring at least seven points per game.
"A lot of their players can score nine, 10, 11 points a game," Barnes pointed out. "So it's really hard to focus on one person, but I think their toughness is their best quality. Their kids are all tough, focused, and play best when it's the biggest games."
A season ago, the teams played an all-time classic at the Kress Center, as the Phoenix topped YSU 70-69 in double overtime. There were some lessons from that game, Barnes said.
"Last year we lost in double overtime and had 26 turnovers," he said. "So if we just take care of it last year, we might have won that game. So we're going to focus on taking care of it, getting as many good shots as we can and see what happens."