Box Score
SIU-Edwardsville redshirt-freshman Ray'Sean Taylor hit a contested 3-pointer from 30 feet away at the buzzer to give the Cougars a 69-66 victory over the Youngstown State men's basketball team on Saturday afternoon. The contest was played at Beeghly Center to open the second day of the YSU / J. Arnold Wealth Management Company Basketball Tournament.
The Penguins led for nearly 34 minutes and held a 66-62 advantage in the final 40 seconds before SIUE rallied by scoring the final seven points of the game.
Michael Akuchie led the Penguins with 14 points and six rebounds, and Tevin Olison and Myles Hunter also scored 10 points for YSU. Akuchie went 8-for-9 from the free-throw line, but his teammates combined to go 7-for-14.
Taylor scored a game-high 24 points, and Shaun Doss Jr. added 19 for the Cougars.
Hunter hit a turnaround jumper in the lane at the 2:54 mark to give the Penguins a 66-62 lead. From that point, YSU went 0-for-3 from the field and 0-for-2 from the free-throw line and committed two turnovers.
Shemar Rathan-Mayes missed two free throws at the 1:44 mark that could have upped the margin to six, and YSU missed a 3 and had a turnover on its next trip down the floor. Taylor scored in transition off the turnover to cut the margin to 66-64, and a block on YSU's next possession allowed Doss Jr. to score another fast-break bucket for SIUE with 6.3 seconds left.
The Penguins called timeout in the frontcourt with 3.3 seconds remaining to set up a sideline out-of-bounds play, but the inbounds pass was off the mark and resulted in a backcourt violation. The officials put an extra 1.2 seconds on the clock to give SIUE a full 2.0 to work with, and Taylor's release came with a second left.
Youngstown State used a 17-5 run midway through the first half to turn a 15-14 deficit into a 31-20 lead. Chris Shelton and Daniel Ogoro hit 3-pointers in a span of three possessions during the run, and Rathan-Mayes finished the spurt with a driving layup with 7:35 left.
The margin was 11 again at 39-28 when Akuchie converted a three-point play with 38 seconds left in the opening half, and Taylor hit a 3 on SIUE's next possession to make the score 39-31 at halftime.
The Cougars cut the deficit down to a possession for the first time in the second half with at 47-4 12:42 left, but the Penguins held and increased their lead to nine at 55-46 on a three-point play by Dwayne Cohill with 9:18 remaining. The YSU advantage was 62-55 with 6:19 remaining, but YSU was held to four points the rest of the game.
The Penguins will play the final game of the YSU / J. Arnold Wealth Management Company Basketball Tournament against Niagara on Sunday at 3:45 p.m. All four teams at the tournament are 1-1 this weekend.
