Recordpub.com - KSU men pull away in second half to defeat Penguins

By David Carducci

Record-Courier staff writer

YOUNGSTOWN — Kent State survived its first game without the injured Chris Singletary by turning on the defense for a stifling eight minutes and pulling away for a 70-61 win over Youngstown State on Wednesday at the Beghley Center.

The score was deadlocked at 40 after a short jumper by YSU’s DeAndre Mays with 11:16 to play. From that point on, the Golden Flashes held the Penguins scoreless for four minutes during a 13-0 run and without a single field goal for 8:27.

“We came into the game worrying all about defense,” said Rodriquez Sherman, who stuffed the stat sheet again with 15 points, five rebounds, five assists and three steals. “The last game, we didn’t do a good job defensively as a team ... We wanted to talk, get back in transition and have everybody get into it.”

They accomplished all of those goals while switching between 1-3-1 and 2-3 zones, straight-up man-to-man and a scrambling trap that combined to force 19 Penguins turnovers. Twelve of those turnovers came on KSU steals, including a strip and breakaway dunk by Sherman to put the exclamation point on the win with 37 seconds to play.

“I thought our defense for the whole 40 minutes was very good,” said KSU head coach Geno Ford. “Even the baskets they made were all contested. They had to earn everything they got.”

On the other end of the floor, senior Tyree Evans jump-started the key 13-0 spurt by drilling an NBA-range 3-pointer on a catch-and-shoot as the trailer on a fast break with 10:22 to play. He closed the run almost three minutes later by hitting a fall-away 3 off a baseline inbounds pass, putting the Flashes ahead 53-40.

Evans finished with a game-high 18 points on a sizzling 7-for-10 shooting from the field that included 4-of-5 from 3-point range. His stroke was so pure it was difficult to tell if several of his shots even touched the net on their way through the basket.

“He took 10 great shots,” said KSU head coach Geno Ford. “Tyree played with an aggressive patience ... And we are going to have to have his offense when we don’t have Chris, because we run so much of our offense through him.”

Singletary could miss between two and six weeks after having surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his right knee.

Justin Greene helped pick make up for the loss of Singletary’s inside scoring by continuing his fine play near the basket. The sophomore center scored 17 points while scoring on a variety of post moves and going 7-for-8 from the foul line.

Anthony Simpson gave KSU a fourth double-digit scorer, authoring his best night of the season with 12 points and six rebounds off the bench.

“It was great to see guys stepping up when we had to have it,” said Evans. “Now we know we can win even when (Singletary) isn’t out there ... We just found out we are a team.”

The win was also an important start to a difficult stretch of 9-of-11 games on the road for Kent State.

“It’s only going to get harder,” said Sherman. “But this was great for us ... Now our younger guys know what it’s like to play and win in a hostile environment.”

The Flashes nearly squandered their late lead, committing five of their 17 turnovers in the final 3:27 and getting whistled for a few careless fouls to allow the Penguins to get as close as six points with 47 seconds to play. One more turnover gave YSU a chance to cut even deeper into the lead before Sherman’s steal-and-dunk.

“That was the clincher,” said Ford. “We were looking around to see who was going to make a defensive play.”

Youngstown State (1-2) was led by Vytas Sulskis and Sirlester Martin, both with 15 points. Sulskis fouled with 3:08 to play as YSU was trying to claw its way back into the game

“Vytas was a very important part of our game,” said YSU coach Jerry Slocum. “To lose Vytas at a very big moment like that, it hurt us.”

Kent State (3-1) returns home to play Rochester on Sunday at 7 p.m. before embarking on a four-game road trip to South Florida, Morehead State, Xavier and Pittsburgh.

•••

David Carducci can be reached at dcarducci@recordpub.com