Eye’s of the Enemy: Youngstown State Q&A
Kyle Nelson who covers the Horizon League for Mid-Major Madness was nice enough to sit down with us and talk about Saturday’s match up with Youngstown State.
Kendrick Perry was far and away the leader of this team a year ago. With Perry moving on who are some of the guys to watch out for the Penguins on the hardwood this season?
Bobby Hain is their leading returning scorer and rebounder. I really think he needs to have a big season for the Penguins to do anything this season. He’s an athletic big, but you don’t have to guard him at the 3 point line. He’ll do all of his damage down low.
DJ Cole looks to be their glue guy and overall leader. He learned under one of the best guards in the conference for 3 years, and now it’s his turn to take over for Perry. He’s averaged 30 minutes a game the last 2 season and took less than 6 shots a game. I could see that getting kicked up to 10 this year and if he hits them at the clip he did last season he should average about 12 points a game.
Shawn Amiker has been interesting this season. So far he’s getting about double the minutes he did last year and he’s shooting. A lot. He’s also pulling down 6.7 rebounds so far this early season, but was shut down against Central Michigan. Before the season I wasn’t thinking he’d be a huge factor, but I’ll be watching him closer after the Kent State game.
YSU is off the a 1–2 start coming into this EMU Showcase but they’ve battled two MAC teams pretty tough. What are the biggest takeaways from the early sample size thus far?
Amiker looks good so far, Cole has been ice cold, but I don’t expect that to continue, and Hain can’t stay on the court. I’m impressed with this team’s tenacity, but I don’t see them competing for a Horizon League title on effort alone. There’s really not that much to take away from 3 games, one of which was against a non-D1 school. These next 3 games will tell us if YSU is a bottom of the barrel team or something slightly better than UIC.
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It looks like three point shooting and shooting in general has been pretty poor for the Penguins early on. Is this a concern long term for the season and is it YSU’s biggest weakness?
I think lack of size is their biggest weakness, but shooting may be right there. They have one player (Hain) over 6’8” who plays any sort of minutes. They have a 7 footer on the roster, but if Jorden Kaufman is getting any run then things have gone really bad. Fletcher Larson and Sidney Umude are the other “bigs” but Larson is a 6’8” senior who only came in when Hain got into foul trouble and Umude is only 6’7”.
This is a team that is going to shoot a lot of 3s and if they get hot look out. I don’t see them doing that though.
You remember the Seinfeld episode with Jimmy? Jimmy can jump! Well Marcus Keene is similar to Jimmy, he’s a chucker. He’s taken 24 threes so far this season and connected on only 8 of them. That combined with Cole aforementioned cold streak has led to the downtown problem you’ve seen so far.
What would you say the biggest strength of the YSU team is?
Leadership? This team is fairly young, but Cole and Hain have been around the block and had some good teammate mentors. They will keep the Penguins focused and I don’t think you’ll ever see this team hang their head during what looks to be a tough season. Jerry Slocum is an excellent coach and he’ll have his team ready for every game. That said I don’t think they’ll have the talent to win the games they are ready for.
What is your prediction for Saturday’s game against Longwood and what would be a successful tournament for YSU?
I think if they come out with 2 wins that will be a good tournament. I’d be shocked if they beat Eastern Michigan tonight, but they should be able to beat UNC Greensboro and Longwood. I do see this being a lower scoring affair, maybe something along the lines of 65–60. Neither teams are particularly good at shooting the ball so we could have a lot of rebounds and since neither team is particularly tall I think I’d have to give the edge to Youngstown. I really don’t like to make predictions because I’m always wrong. Last season on the Valpo fan site they did an over/under and I was wrong on all but one very obvious under. So if you’re reading this in Vegas, bet the over and probably Longwood.
