The Youngstown State men's basketball team held Detroit Mercy without a field goal for the final four minutes and ended the game on an 11-3 run to rally for a 71-66 in the quarterfinals of the 2023 Barbasol Horizon League Men's Basketball Championship. A raucous group of 5,584 fans, the largest crowd in Beeghly Center since 2013, cheered the Penguins on.
The win sends the top-seeded Penguins to Indianapolis for the final four of the conference tournament, and Youngstown State tied the program record for victories with 24 that was set in 1963-64.
Adrian Nelson scored 20 points to lead Youngstown State, and Dwayne Cohill scored 17. Cohill was big part of a group effort to hold the nation's leading scorer Antoine Davis six points under his average. Davis came in needing 25 points to tie Pete Maravich's NCAA Division I men's career scoring record, and the Penguins held him to 22.
Davis hit a 3-pointer at the 4:19 mark to put the Titans up 63-60, but Detroit Mercy did not make a field goal the rest of the night. That triple gave Davis 20 points, but he missed his last seven attempts from the field.
After the Davis 3, the Penguins scored the next four points from the free throw line and took a 64-63 lead on two makes by Nelson at the 3:16 mark. Gerald Lidell split two charity tosses with 2:28 on the clock to tie the score at 64, and Nelson scored on a hook shot a minute later to give the Penguins a 66-64 lead that they would not surrender.
YSU got a stop defensively, and Cohill scored on a drive to the basket to push the margin to 68-64. Bryce McBride split two free throws with 16.4 seconds on the clock to make it a five-point game, and the Penguins got another stop. Davis made two free throws after a deadball technical foul to cut the deficit to one possession at 69-66, but Davis made two free throws with 9.5 seconds left to up the margin back to five. Davis had one more attempt to try and tie Maravich's record, but his long 3-pointer hit the left side of the rim.
The Penguins shot 43.6% overall from the field, and they held the Titans to 35.3% for the game. The teams combined to go 11-for-49 from beyond the arc, and YSU held an 18-12 edge at the free-throw line.
Youngstown State's largest lead of the first half came when Rush hit a 3-pointer at the 14:18 mark to make the score 9-6. The Titans scored 11 straight points, and they held their largest lead of the half at 17-9 when Davis hit a 3-pointer with 12:04 remaining.
The Penguins counterpunched with an 8-0 burst to go up 22-21 on a Malek Green bucket with 6:34 on the clock, but that was their last lead of the half. Detroit Mercy scored four straight points, and the Titans held a 33-29 lead at the break.
Rush made two 3-pointers, one that was followed by a free throw for a four-point play, at the 17:30 mark that got the Penguins to within 40-39. The Titans scored seven of the next nine points to take a 47-41 lead at the 14:34 mark, but that's when the Penguins made their first charge of the second half.
After a long delay for a video review of a foul, the Penguins regrouped and scored eight straight points over the next two minutes to go up 49-47. The YSU lead was 51-49 with 10:53 on the clock when Detroit Mercy scored nine straight to go up 58-51 on a three-point play by Marcus Tankersley with 9:19 left. The Titans held the lead until Nelson's free throws at the 3:15 mark gave the Penguins a 64-63 advantage.
Youngstown State will play Northern Kentucky in the semifinals at 7 p.m. on Monday at Indiana Farmers Coliseum. The game will be broadcast live on 570 WKBN and ESPNU. For tickets, go to HorizonLeague.com/Indy.
