YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO– The men’s basketball team made the quick trip to Youngstown State (19-8, 11-5 Horizon) Wednesday night.
The Colonials (10-16, 6-9 Horizon) fell to the Penguins by a score in 87-77.
The story of the game was the board battle. The Penguins had nine offensive rebounds in the first half. With ten minutes left in the game, DJ Burns missed a free throw and the Ziggy Reid got the offensive rebound getting the basket and the foul.
Head coach Andy Toole spoke about the struggling off the glass.
“They got us in transition on the backboards,” Toole said, “It was the difference in the game. They had three straight possessions where they got multiple chances to score. We weren’t able to convert on our end and they were able to convert. A large in the second half, they were really able to get on those backboards and give themselves second, third opportunities to score.”
Younsgtwon State had a whopping 24 second chance points on 21 offensive rebounds.
However, the Colonials had some firepower of their own. RMU had a 9-0 run late in the half to trail by four at the break.
The Colonials got hot out of the break as well, hitting five straight three pointers and cut the deficit to one.
“We were able to kind of work our way back in there with some made threes,” Toole said. “Josh [Corbin] obviously hit a couple. Some other guys stepped up and, made some baskets and finished at the rim. That’s what we needed to do. In the second half. But, I don’t think we were able to do it well enough for long enough.”
Coming out of the media timeout, the Penguins immediately followed that with a 13-0 run with many missed shots in the paint and turnovers.
The Colonials were playing from behind almost the entire game, only leading for less than three minutes.
“You got to be able to handle what you can control on every possession. You know, I don’t think we did a good enough job of that. It was a multitude of guys that weren’t able to really get it done,” Toole said. “I think all year long. Rebounding has been one of our strengths and tonight it wasn’t.”
Three different Penguins had 20 or more points. Brett Thompson had a season-high 27, DJ Burns had 24, Ziggy Reid had 20.
Josh Corbin had 26 points with six three pointers, his most since his career day on Jan. 12 against Purdue Fort Wayne.
“He played really hard. He was fighting to try and find every bit of space that he possibly could. When he was able to get some of that space, he was able to capitalize.”
The Colonials’ next matchup will be against the high-flying Wright State on Saturday at 1 p.m. The Raiders put up 101 points on the Colonials on Jan. 10.
