JUST THE BASICS
The Youngstown State women's basketball team will begin its 37th season overall and second under Head Coach Bob Boldon on Friday at West Virginia in front of a national television audience on ESPN3.com. Tipoff at the WVU Coliseum is scheduled for 6:32 p.m. The game will also be broadcast live on 570wkbn.com, and live stats will be available on msnsportsnet.com. YSU returns four starters from last year's team that went 6-24, and West Virginia has one starter back from last season's 24-10 squad.
TOP FIVE STORYLINES
- Despite its 6-24 record last year, YSU won its last three home games and was within one possession in the final 15 seconds of its final three road games, including a loss at the buzzer in opening round of the Horizon League Tournament.
- YSU set school records with 205 3-pointers made and 744 3-pointers attempted. The Penguins attempted a single-game school-record 48 3-pointers in the opener at Pitt last year.
- Junior forward Brandi Brown is the Horizon League Preseason Player of the Year. She was a second-team all-league pick last year as the conference's top scorer at 19.9 points per game.
- Brown scored 939 points in her first two years. She is 61 points from becoming the 17th player in school history to reach 1,000 points. Only seven of the previous 16 reached the milestone as a junior.
- YSU has played a team from the Big East in each of the past five seasons. The Penguins played Cincinnati in 2006-07 and 2007-08, and they played Pittsburgh the last three years. YSU's last win over a team from the Big East was a 96-86 win over West Virginia on Nov, 19, 1997. That was the last meeting between the teams.
Scouting West Virginia
West Virginia is coming off a 24-10 season in which it advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The Mountaineers will be young in 2011-12 with just one returning starter, one senior and four freshmen. Natalie Burton is the lone senior, and she is one of seven Mountaineers standing at least six feet tall. Junior center Asya Bussie is the top returning scorer at 8.2 points per game.
Series with West Virginia
Youngstown State and West Virginia have not played since the 1997-98 season, but YSU has a two-game winning streak in the series. YSU won four straight contests from 1979 to 1981, and West Virginia had a three-game winning streak before YSU won the last two. Of the 15 games in the series, which YSU leads 8-7, only six of the final margins have been single digits.
Last Game: L, 49-47 at Loyola
Youngstown State gave a stalwart defensive effort and had a shot blocked at the buzzer in a 49-47 loss at Loyola in the opening round of the Horizon League Tournament on March 7, 2011.
The Penguins trailed by as many as 12 in the second half, but they got a spark from freshmen Liz Hornberger and Monica Touvelle. Macey Nortey's triple put the Penguins within two with 1:17 left, and YSU missed two potential tying shots in the final 10 seconds.
Brandi Brown finished with a team-high 16 points despite having an off night. Hornberger finished with 12 points in her first career start, and Tieara Jones had eight steals.
After cutting the lead to four with 9:52 left, YSU went scoreless for more than five minutes.
Loyola got 19 points from Monica Albano and 17 from Abby Skube.
Last Time vs. West Virginia
Senior Shannon Beach matched her career high with 24 points, and three other Penguins scored in double figures as YSU beat West Virginia 96-86 on Nov. 19, 1997 in Youngstown.
Beach hit six 3-pointers in the contest and scored 18 points in the opening period as YSU built a 48-36 halftime lead. Beach's first trey gave the Penguins an 8-7 lead with 15:31 left, and they never trailed afterward. YSU led by as many as 20 with just over 10 minutes to go.
Teresita Jones added 19 points and 10 rebounds for YSU, which went on to finish 28-3 for the season. The 1997-98 team is often regarded as the best in school history.
Who's Back from 2010-11
Youngstown State returns four starters and seven letterwinners from last year's team that finished 6-24 overall and 4-14 in Horizon League play. YSU returns 83.3 percent of its scoring from last season, which is the second-highest in the Horizon League. Returning starters include senior guards Tieara Jones, Kenya Middlebrooks and Macey Nortey, and junior forward Brandi Brown. Sophomore guards Liz Hornberger, Melissa Thompson and Monica Touvelle are the other returning letterwinners.
Who's New for 2011-12
There are three newcomers on the squad, and all are guards. Devan Matkin is a junior transfer from Tallahassee Community College, and Kelsea Fickiesen and Ashley Lawson are freshmen. Matkin averaged 7.4 points and made a team-best 30 3-pointers last year. She hit three triples in five different games. Fickiesen scored 2,096 points and was a four-time all-state honoree at St. Marys High in West Virginia. Lawson was a Special Mention All-Ohio pick as a senior as she averaged 14.7 points.
Shooting/Making 3s at Record Pace
YSU set a school record with 744 3-point attempts last season. That was 180 more attempts than the previous record set in 1997-98. The Penguins also made a school-best 205 treys, surpassing the 199 made in 1999-2000.
The Penguins attempted at least 30 3-pointers in seven different games last year. They had done that just four times in the program's first 35 seasons. YSU also made at least 10 treys on six occasions last year. The 1999-2000 season was the only other time in school history when YSU made double-digit treys in at least five different games.
Last Year's Areas of Improvement
YSU improved its scoring margin from 2009-10 from minus-25.8 to minus-10.6. That 15.2-point improvement was second-best in the country.
The Penguins trimmed their turnovers by 3.3 per game from 2009-10 and forced 2.3 more per game. YSU's plus 2.3 turnover margin ranked second in the Horizon League.
The Penguins finished with 92 more steals than their opponents last year, which was a big improvement from 2009-10 when YSU had 83 fewer thefts than its opponents.
YSU continued to get better as last season progressed, demonstrated by shooting better than its season field-goal percentage in 15 of its final 18 games.
Boldon's Win Increase Most for YSU
Bob Boldon led YSU to a six-win increase last year in his first season as the Penguins' head coach. Jeff Cohen is the only other first-year head coach to increase the win total from the previous year. He led YSU to 11 wins in 1982-83, a one-win increase from 1981-82.
Tough Schedule Lies Ahead
The game against West Virginia is the first of 13 for YSU this year against teams coming off of a 20-win season. YSU has just 12 home games, and five of the first six are on the road. On a bright note, that road swing ends with a homecoming for Los Angeles-area natives Macey Nortey and Brandi Brown. The Penguins will play two games at the Loyola Marymount tournament over Thanksgiving.
Penguins Picked 10th in Horizon League Preseason Poll
Youngstown State is slated to finish 10th in the Horizon League based on a preseason poll of the league's coaches, sports information directors and a media member from each market.
Fresh off its Sweet 16 run, Green Bay is the preseason favorite and received 29 of 30 first-place votes. Cleveland State was a distant second, and Wright State, Butler, UIC and Milwaukee finished third through sixth in close votes. Detroit was picked to finish seventh by a sizeable margin, and Loyola, Valparaiso and YSU rounded out the bottom three. YSU defeated Valpo in both meetings last year and was ahead of the Crusaders in the final standings.
Guins in the Academic Top 25
For the first time in program history, the YSU women's basketball team was recognized on the Women's Basketball Coaches Association Academic Top 25 Team Honor Roll in July.
YSU had a combined grade-point average of 3.395 during the 2010-11 academic year, which ranked them 17th on the top 25 poll. Horizon League teams Milwaukee and Green Bay were also in the top 25, giving the league a tie for the most among any conference in the nation.
Brown Named Horizon League Preseason Player of the Year
Junior forward Brandi Brown has been voted the Horizon League Preseason Player of the Year.
Brown is coming off a breakout campaign in which she led the conference in scoring and was named second-team All-Horizon League. Interestingly, Brown is the first player in the Horizon League's 25-year history to win the scoring title and not be voted onto the first team.
Brown was the only underclassman on the first or second team. She averaged 19.9 points, ranked tied-for-fourth in the conference with 9.2 rebounds per game, and her 13 double-doubles tied for the league lead.
Brown Seven Straight With 20
Brandi Brown ended last year's regular season by scoring at least 20 points in seven straight games. Although Brown was held to 16 points in the opening round of the Horizon League Tournament last year, a 20-point game against the Mountaineers would give her eight straight regular games scoring in the twenties. Dorothy Bowers is the last player to score at least 20 points in eight straight regular-season games. She did it to end her career in the 1987-88 season.
Middlebrooks, Hornberger Among League's Top Shooters
Senior Kenya Middlebrooks and sophomore Liz Hornberger are two of the top 3-point shooters in the Horizon League. Overall, Middlebrooks ranked seventh in the conference with two treys made per game. During Horizon League play, Middlebrooks made 2.4 per game, which ranked fourth in the conference. Her .383 shooting percentage from beyond the arc was the ninth-best in the league. Hornberger shot .417 from 3-point range in league play, which ranked her tied-for-third. She made 20 of her final 46 attempts over the last 10 games of 2010-11.
Nortey's Got Plenty of Experience
Senior point guard Macey Nortey will enter this season as one of the most-experienced players in the Horizon League. She has started 84 games in her career – 25 as a freshman, 30 as a sophomore and 29 last year as a junior. The school record for career starts is 112. Nortey is coming off her most efficient year of running YSU's offense. She had a 1.1 assist-to-turnover ratio last year, which was the best of her career by far. Her assist-to-turnover ratio over the last seven games was 1.9.
Jones Emerged As Defensive Wiz
Tieara Jones was one of the Horizon League's best defenders last season, which was her first in a YSU uniform. Jones led the Horizon League with 1.3 blocks per game, and she ranked seventh with 2.1 steals per game. Her eight steals against Loyola in the Horizon League Tournament tied for the most in a single game by a league player during the year.
Interested in a Masquerade Party?
Youngstown State has two players wearing protective masks – Kelsea Fickiesen and Heidi Schlegel. Oddly enough, the two are roommates in Lyden Hall. Fickiesen's nose was broken at practice on Halloween, and she missed just over a week of practice. Schlegel's nose was broken during fall practice last year, but she continues to wear the mask out of habit.
Up Next
Youngstown State will practice in Morgantown Saturday morning before heading west for a game against IPFW. Tipoff against the Mastodons will be Sunday at 2 p.m.
