Correspondent file photo / Robert Hayes. YSU sophomore guard Jaiden Haynes drives past Purdue Fort Wayne’s Mikale Stevenson during a game on Jan. 7 at Zidian Family Arena.

YOUNGSTOWN — In recent years, the Youngstown State men’s basketball program has retained a handful of players from the previous season each year, while still rebuilding the roster significantly through the transfer portal.

However, after suffering their first losing season since 2018-19 last year, the Penguins started over from scratch with their new roster, retaining just one player from 2025-26, while adding 13 new players over the last couple months.

“I think you’ve gotta learn year-to-year, no matter how the year goes,” head coach Ethan Faulkner said. “If you win, you gotta learn. If you have a year where maybe you don’t have as many wins as you want, you gotta learn from that. I think if we’re not learning, we’re not growing. As we continue to try to take this program to the next level, there’s always things that we can get better at.”

The new players made their way to YSU’s campus in recent weeks, and the 2026-27 iteration of the Penguins began summer workouts on Monday, as they set their sights on a new season in November.

“Another brand new team,” Faulkner said. “We’ve got a lot of new players as we get started this summer to make sure that we understand the importance of the connection of our team, and developing relationships with one another, so that we can be our best at the most important time of the year.”

Sophomore Jaiden Haynes is the only holdover from last year, while the Penguins added four freshmen, eight transfers and one walk-on.

Haynes averaged 4.8 points in 16.0 minutes per game last season and earned his way into the starting lineup at one point, but battled injuries at times throughout the year.

“I think there’s really three pieces to recruiting,” Faulkner said. “It’s guys that you know can come here and have an opportunity to play a meaningful role, I think it’s guys that fit your style of play and I think there’s guys that you feel like you can really develop in your system. So, I think we’ve really hit on those areas.”

Of the freshmen, YSU signed 6-foot-2 shooting guard Jacob Spurlock (Boyd County/Ashland, Ky.) and 6-foot combo guard Kaelen Destin (Our Savior Lutheran Prep/Bronx, N.Y.) back in November, then added 6-foot-9 forward Luka Lokhmanchuk (Andrews Osborne/Kyiv, Ukraine) on April 17 and 6-foot-7 forward Elijah Summers-Livingston (AZ Compass Prep/Mesa, Ariz.) on May 12.

The Penguins also added Andrew Adock-Vidouria, a 6-foot-3 freshman guard from the International Sports Academy in Ohio, as a walk-on.

YSU’s eight transfer newcomers include, 5-foot-10 guard Jayden Tyler (Wofford), 6-foot-7 wing Jermaine Coleman (St. Thomas), 6-foot-11 center Kelvin Amoako (UIndy), 6-foot-3 shooting guard Linus Holmstrom (VMI), 5-foot-10 guard Dom Aekins (Duquesne), 6-foot-4 guard Jamar Livingston (Walters State CC) and 6-foot-8 forward Japhet Moupadele (San Jose State).

The Penguins also received a commitment from Oklahoma transfer Jeff Nwankwo on April 10, but his status for joining the program still remains up in the air.

When recruiting, Faulkner said YSU focused on speed and athleticism at the guard position with players like Tyler, Destin and Aekins, while also looking to complement those ball handlers with high-level shooters on the perimeter, like Spurlock, Holmstrom and Livingston.

At forward, size and physicality is something the Penguins have lacked the last couple years, and Faulkner said that was something they emphasized when recruiting with players like Amoako, Coleman, Moupadele, Lokhmanchuk and Summers-Livingston.

“We feel like we’ve really added that with the guys that we brought in at those positions,” Faulkner said. “So it’ll look a little bit different. But I think we’ve really hit on some of the things that we wanted to identify in this class.

“Style of play will be similar, but there will be some changes that we go through as we’ve added different personnel. I think that’ll happen year after year. For us, I think we certainly recruit to a style, but also we gotta get really good players, and if we can get some really good players that are a little bit different, then you gotta mold your style to how they play.”