AKRON, OHIO – The Akron Zips improved their record to 4-1 overall as they defeated the Youngstown State Penguins 82-60 Thursday evening in the third game of the Global Sports Shootout at Rhodes Arena.
The victory was . . .
“We had four guys in double figures tonight, but we need to be more connected in the second half.” Zips head coach John Groce said. “We got contributions from a lot of people tonight.”
Junior Loren Cristen Jackson and senior Tyler Cheese led all scorers with 19 points each. Fellow senior Channel Banks added 12, while Cameron Reece had 10 and six rebounds.
Youngstown State’s lone scorer in double figures was sophomore Darius Quisenberry, scoring 17 points hitting 7-of-15 from the field and three of six from beyond the arc.
“The other team is really shooting the ball well. If Akron makes their threes, they could be one of the best mid-major teams in the country.” Penguins head man Jerrod Calhoun said. ”We picked a bad night to be bad.”
Similar to their 76-45 win over USC-Upstate, the Zips started strong, scoring 10 of the game’s first 12 points as they hit five of eight from the field. YSU countered with a 7-2 run to close the margin to five 17-12 when Tyler Foster connected on a three-pointer from the right corner at the 10:37 mark.
It would be the closest the Penguins would get for the remainder of the game as the Zips used an 11-2 run to open a 14-point lead, 28-14, at the 8:04 mark on a jumper by Greg Tribble.
UA’s lead would not fall below double digits, and it owned an 18-point advantage at intermission 43-25. The Zips shot well in the, hitting 16-of-33 from the field (48.5%), including 6-of-16 from beyond the arc while holding YSU to just 9-of-33 from the floor (27.3 percent).
“We played the best first half of basketball this season.” Groce said.
The game was much more even in the second half. However, the Penguins just could not cut into their deficit. Over the final 20 minutes, they were outscored by four points, 39-35, with the game’s largest differentia; coming at 25 point in the final moments.
Over the course of the game, UA shot 48.4 percent from the field (31-of-64) and made 13-of-32 three pointers. YSU won the battle of the boards 42-40 (14 of which came on the offensive glass) but shot just 32.4 percent from the floor (22-of-68)
The rest of the statistics were pretty much even, with points in the paint even at 32-32, Bench scoring was also deadlocked 31-31, with the Penguins getting 14 second chance points to UA’s 11.
Akron plays the final game Global Sports Shootout on Sunday when they travel to Louisville to battle the Cardinals from the ACC. Their next home game comes on Friday November 29th when Merrimack from the Northeast Conference comes to the Rubber City.