Game Preview
- Youngstown State will continue a challenging February stretch as it travels to Indianapolis to play IUPUI for its third game in a five-day period. The Penguins will play the Jaguars on Tuesday at 7 p.m., and the contest from The Jungle will be broadcast live on 1390 WNIO and ESPN+.
- YSU will be looking to snap two undesirable streaks when it takes the floor on Tuesday. The Penguins are coming off back-to-back home losses, and thye have dropped six straight decisions to IUPUI.
- The Penguins will be looking to bounce back from consecutive home losses at the start of this three-game span. YSU was held to 54 points in losses to both Milwaukee and Green Bay over the weekend. Milwaukee made 14 3s – its most in a game in six years – on Friday, and the Phoenix jumped out to an 18-4 lead on Sunday.
- Even with the losses over the weekend a 2-4 mark in February, YSU has clinched a top-four seed in the 2023 Barbasol Horizon League Women's Basketball Championship and will host a quarterfinal game on March 2.
- Youngstown State is 18-9 overall and 12-6 in Horizon League play with two games left in the regular season. YSU holds a one-game lead on IUPUI, meaning that a win over the Jaguars on Tuesday would clinch the third seed in the conference tournament. A loss to IUPUI would create a tie for third place, and IUPUI would hold the tiebreaker due to a regular-season sweep of the Penguins.
- The Guins need two more wins to clinch their sixth 20-win season in the last 11 years.
- YSU is 6-2 on the road in Horizon League play this season, and it is playing on the road for the first time since Feb. 4.
- Fifth-year senior Lilly Ritz enters Tuesday's game needing 16 points to reach 2,000 for her career. Ritz has 924 points in 54 career games as a Penguin, and she scored 1,060 points over 54 games at the Division II level.
- Ritz is a three-time Horizon League Player of the Week this season, which is tied for the most in the league. Ritz ranks among the top three players in the conference in scoring, rebounding, field-goal percentage, double-doubles, steals and blocks, and she is among the top 20 players in the country in double-doubles, rebounding and field-goal percentage.
- On the perimeter, three Penguins guards – Malia Magestro, Megan Callahan and Shy - are averaging at least 8.0 points and rank among the top 12 in the Horizon League in 3s per game.
- Callahan scored the 1,000th point of her career in Friday's game against Milwaukee. The sixth-year senior is averaging a career-high 10.8 points per game, and she ranks 22nd in the country in 3-point field-goal percentage at .417.
- This is YSU's 10th season under Head Coach John Barnes, who was named the Horizon League Coach of the Year in 2021-22. Barnes is second in career victories at YSU with 169, and his .569 winning percentage is the third-best mark in school history. His 300th game at Youngstown State will be YSU's first contest in the 2023 Barbasol Horizon League Women's Basketball Championship.
- YSU shared the Horizon League regular-season title with IUPUI in 2021-22 as both teams finished with an 18-4 conference mark. While the core of YSU's roster is familiar, the target on the Penguins' back is not. For the first time in program history, Youngstown State was picked as the preseason favorite to win the Horizon League by the conference's coaches. Last season, YSU was picked to finish seventh in the preseason poll.
- This is the 50th anniversary season of Beeghly Center, which opened in 1972-73. YSU is 58-19 at home since the start of the 2018-19 season for a .753 winning percentage, and it is 33-9 in its last 42 games on Rosselli Court.
Youngstown State vs. IUPUI
A Win Would...
- Improve YSU's overall record to 19-9 this season and its Horizon League record to 13-6.
- Snap a six-game losing streak to IUPUI and be YSU's first win at The Jungle since Feb. 8, 2018.
- Allow YSU to win 13 Horizon League games for just the third time ever (2018-19 and 2021-22).
- Improve YSU's record in HL road games to 7-2.
- Be Head Coach John Barnes' 326th career victory and his 170th at YSU.
Scouting the Jaguars
- IUPUI is 15-12 overall and 11-7 in Horizon League play entering the final week of the regular season. The Jaguars are coming off a recent split in Michigan in which they lost 57-48 at Detroit Mercy on Thursday and won 87-73 at Oakland on Saturday.
- Averages show that Tuesday's game could be a high-scoring one. IUPUI is the only team in the conference that scores and allows more than 70 points per game. The Jags rank second in the league in scoring offense, and they are ninth in scoring defense. IUPUI also ranks second in the conference in 3s per game and 3-point field-goal percentage.
- Jazymn Turner leads IUPUI with 14.1 points per game from the forward position. Destiny Perkins (13.7 ppg) and Rachel Kent (12.7 ppg) both average double figures as part of a deep and talented backcourt.
- Coach Kate Bruce: IUPUI first-year head coach Kate Bruce was an assistant on Bob Boldon's staff at YSU from 2010-13. Then known as Kate Schrader, she joined Boldon when the Penguins were transitioning from an 0-30 season in 2009-10. YSU began its turnaround into a program that could sustain success when it went 23-10 in 2012-13, and Boldon's staff went together to Ohio. Bruce stayed at OU for three seasons, then succeeded current Purdue Fort Wayne head coach Maria Marchesano as the head coach at Division II Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio, for the last six seasons.
Series History
Overall: IUPUI leads 12-9
Barnes: 3-9 • Home: 4-5 • Away: 4-6 • Neutral: 1-1
Current Win Streak: 6 by IUPUI
- IUPUI has won six straight games against YSU to take a 12-9 lead in the all-time series that dates back to the 1998-99 season when both schools were members of the Mid-Continent Conference. YSU left the Mid-Con for the Horizon League in 2001-02, and IUPUI joined the Penguins in the Horizon League in 2017-18.
- The teams split the season series in the first three years that IUPUI was in the Horizon League, and IUPUi has swept the Penguins the last two seasons and won the first contest in 2022-23. Before IUPUI's 68-45 win in Indianapolis last February, YSU had led by at least nine and been ahead in the fourth quarter in three straight losses to the Jaguars.
Recently vs. IUPUI
- This Season (at YSU – Jan. 16, 2023): Youngstown State didn't have its best on either end of the floor and suffered a 64-61 defeat to IUPUI as a result on Jan. 16 at Beeghly Center. YSU was just 13-for-34 inside the arc, and the Jaguars shot 46.2% overall and 42.9% from beyond the arc. Still, YSU battled back from a nine-point deficit to tie the game at halftime and held a 60-59 lead with 3:47 left in the game. The Penguins didn't make another field goal the rest of the night, and they had a turnover and a missed 3 on two possessions in the final 10 seconds.
- Last Season at IUPUI (Feb. 24, 2022): IUPUI scored the first 12 points of the game and held a nine-point advantage the rest of the night in a 68-45 victory at The Jungle. IUPUI led 14-3 at the end of the first period. Even though YSU won the turnover margin 14-13, IUPUI held a 15-3 advantage in points off turnovers. The Penguins were limited to 12 points in the paint, and Lilly Ritz was held to a season-low five points as foul trouble and game flow kept her minutes to under 19. IUPUI shot 48.2% and converted 11 offensive rebounds into 19 second-chance points.
Feb. 21 in YSU History
- YSU has won its last four games on Feb. 21 and is 8-6 all-time on the date. The Penguins beat Cleveland State, Milwaukee and Valparaiso in consecutive years from 2013-15, and they topped Detroit Mercy 72-66 in Beeghly Center in 2020.
- Three Penguins have had huge scoring outputs on Feb. 21 – Dorothy Bowers had 43 at Austin Peay in 1987; Brandi Brown had 33 vs. Cleveland State in 2013; and Heidi Schlegel had 38 points at Valpo in 2015.
Recapping Green Bay
Game Summary
Green Bay scored 18 of the first 22 points of the game, and Youngstown State was never able to recover in a 67-54 loss on Sunday at Beeghly Center. YSU missed its first 13 attempts from 3-point range as it got in the early hole. Green Bay led by as much as 25 midway through the third quarter, but the Penguins made a charge with a 19-4 run and trailed just 53-43 with 7:48 left. That's as close as they would get. Lilly Ritz registered game highs of 20 points and 14 rebounds, and she was 9-for-14 from the field on her Senior Day. Dena Jarrells scored 11 points, and Megan Callahan had nine.
Notes
- Youngstown State had a higher field-goal percentage than Green Bay in each of the final three periods. YSU shot 31.3% in the second, 50% in the third and 35.3% in the fourth. Green Bay shot 30% in the second, 42.9% in the third and 25% in the fourth.
- Green Bay went 19-for-23 from the free-throw line, and YSU was 9-for-15. That accounted for 10 points in the final 13-point margin, and Green Bay had one more field goal that was a 3-pointer.
- For the first time this season, YSU did not hold a lead at any point.
- Ritz scored YSU's first 10 points of the game, and she had 10 points and 10 rebounds at halftime. She was 16-for-22 from the field in the two games against Green Bay during the regular season, but she battled foul trouble in both. Ritz had four fouls in 19 minutes in Green Bay, and she fouled out after 29 minutes in Youngstown.
- Lindsey Mack made her first start as a Penguin as one of three student-athletes being honored on Senior Day. She made 44 starts in her three seasons at Fairleigh Dickinson.
- Dena Jarrells reached double figures in scoring for the first time since Jan. 26. She had 11 points in both meetings with Green Bay during the regular season.
- Mady Aulbach scored five points for the second straight game, and she scored for the eighth consecutive contest. She had scored in eight of YSU's first 19 games. Aulbach is also 4-for-10 from beyond the arc in her last seven games.
- Ritz and Emily Saunders combined to block five shots, which tied for the second-most in a game this season. Saunders' three blocks tied her career high.
- YSU had just one steal, which tied for the lowest total of the season. Green Bay had just three steals.
- There were just 16 turnovers combined in the contest. Green Bay had six, which was the lowest total by an opponent this season.
- Paige Shy played in the 100th game of her career.
Up Next
- Youngstown State will play its final game of the regular season on Saturday at Robert Morris. Tipoff at the UPMC Events Center is set for 3 p.m., and the game will be broadcast on 570 WKBN and ESPN3.
