The Town Crier

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Youngstown State Penguins Player and Team Statistics for the 2019-2020 Season

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NCAA Tournament Selection Show
By Steve Porter

A large crowd gathered in Beeghly Center to watch the NCAA Selection Show projected on the scoreboard.

Top Seeds were: Arizona, Indiana, Syracuse, and Wake Forest.

When Youngstown State’s name was called as the 11th seed in the Midwest Region to play #6 seed Fresno State, the crowd went wild.

“I’m ecstatic by the #11 seed selection,” exclaimed Coach KD Durst. “While I think we deserve it, I wouldn’t have been surprised if our seed had been lower. I don’t know that much about Fresno State, so we’re going to have to get busy reviewing scouting reports and viewing tapes of their games.”

As he left Beeghly, Rob Masters, a long time fan, said, “This is so great! I’m getting up in age and thought I’d never see the Penguins be a part of March Madness. But, it’s happening! I have to admit I said some disparaging things about the Athletic Department when they hired who I thought was an inexperienced coach. And then when KD’s team seemed to slip down in his 2nd season here, I was sure things were going bad yet again. But the job he’s done, particularly with the way the team has played these past two seasons, makes me eat my words. Penguin Power, baby!!!”

Other Horizon League teams going to post-season tournaments are:

NIT: Milwaukee, 2nd seed in West Region playing #7 seed Rutgers
CBI: Detroit, 3rd seed in East Region playing #6 seed North Carolina A&T
CIT: Wright State, 5th seed in South Region playing #4 seed Wofford

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Youngstown State Journey to St. Louis
By Steve Porter

Four years ago Youngstown State basketball was a mess following years and years of failure. The hiring of Coach Kendrick “KD” Durst was looked at by many as at best a shot in the dark due to his lack of Division I coaching experience.

Durst began working with the hand with which he had been dealt. Getting players with some individual skills but without the ability to play as a unit was a big obstacle to overcome. But during his first season as head coach, the Penguins emerged as a team that finished with a 16-15 record and a first round exit in the CBI Tournament. While his second season appeared to be a step backwards (the team’s record was 14-16 with no post-season tournament appearance), he was still in a building mode. That was proven when his 3rd season team ran off 25 wins against just 9 losses. That team made it to the semi-finals of the NIT Tournament. Then this season’s team has gone 23-8 thus far and will be making a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Youngstown State’s Athletic Director Vic Morrissey said, “We’re proud of the job Coach Durst has done in his short time at the university. He’s taken the team steadily along the road to success and much quicker than we anticipated. As he continues to build his own team through recruits and transfers, I expect even greater accomplishments by the Penguins.”

This season’s team is anchored by senior center Jamal Grady. Grady has been with Coach Durst all 4 seasons. He’s averaged nearly 15 ppg and 6 rpg over the course of 120 games he’s played during his career. This season his scoring and rebounding averages (15.9 ppg and 6.3 rpg) are slightly below those Grady produced last season but as Coach Durst said, “Jamal’s play has improved each and every year. The only reason his numbers are below those of last season is that we have had improved strength at every position and a much deeper bench, so Jamal hasn’t had to carry as much of the load.”

The capabilities of those teammates supporting Grady have dramatically improved the past two seasons. This season a four-man interior group consisting of Grady, Aaron Tice (9.9 ppg and 5.9 rpg), Kent Jones (6.4 ppg and 3.1 rpg), and Kevin Anderson (5.8 ppg and 1.6 rpg) has scored 48% of the team’s points.

At SF, Colin Chambliss has been on the court more than any other player (26.9 mpg) and during his freshman year scored 10.5 ppg and grabbed 5.4 rpg.

Five players shared guard duties. William Swan (7.5 ppg and 1.3 apg) played limited minutes early in the season but his playing time increased as the season progressed and by the end of the season he was in the starting lineup. B.J. Dennis (7.0 ppg and 2.0 apg), Linehan Murphy (7.0 ppg and 3.3 apg), Levall Hart (4.5 ppg and 3.2 apg), and Tim Lostetter (4.0 ppg and 1.0 apg) shared minutes at the guard positions along with Swan. Hart also filled in at SF when Durst wanted a small lineup on the court.

“All ten of those players have led the team at some point during this season,” said Coach Durst. “And we have 3 other players who have played very limited minutes but have shown they can step in and contribute.”

“We’re ready to go to the NCAA Tournament Regional in St. Louis and take on Fresno State. The Bulldogs are ranked #18 in the nation in the polls. They’ve really got a lot of talented players. So we’re the definite underdogs. But I think we’ll give them a tussle and represent the university and the league well,” said Coach Durst.

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Results For Other Horizon League Teams:

NIT Round 1: Milwaukee lost to Rutgers 73-57…after a well-played and close first half, the Panthers ran out of gas and shot poorly in the 2nd half. SF Jason Minahan topped their scoring with 13 points.

CBI Round 1: Detroit beat North Carolina A&T 74-63…the Titans played a disciplined game, and gradually pulled away for an easy victory led by PG Geordie Wright’s 15 points.

CIT Round 1: Wright State was stopped by Wofford 76-64…the Raiders were simply blitzed by the Terriers in the first half (54-29) and couldn’t make up that much of a difference in the 2nd half…C Ivoree Cameron scored 20 points for Wright State.

CBI Round 2: The Ohio Bobcats opened a 10 point lead in the first half, but Detroit narrowed the margin at the half to 37-33. Then in the 2nd half, the Titans gradually eased ahead of Ohio. With 5 minutes to play Detroit held a 10 point lead and then stubbornly held off the Bobcats. Detroit won 83-74. SG Copley Scott scored 20 points for the Titans.

CBI Semifinals: Detroit ran into an offensive juggernaut and lost to Grambling 95-85. Grambling hit 57% of their FG attempts and 43% of their 3’s and their SG Dwight Crawford scored 33 points. Detroit’s C William Rogers scored 16 while pulling down 14 boards.

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Youngstown State’s First Game in the Big Dance
By Steve Porter

The Youngstown State basketballers took on the #18 ranked and #6 seeded Fresno State Bulldogs (24-7) in the first round of the Midwest Regional. The Penguins were challenged to stop Fresno State’s perimeter starters with SF Keith Woodward scoring 19.7 ppg, SG Allen Scott adding 13.4 ppg, and PG Jermaine Reed contributing 11.3 ppg. The Bulldogs are the 5th highest scoring team in the nation, averaging 82.5 ppg. With Youngstown State being the 21st highest scoring team, averaging 79.4 ppg, the prediction was for a very high scoring game.

The Penguins looked tight on their first two possessions while Fresno State was scoring 4 quick points. But SG William Swan hit a 12 foot baseline jumper with 18:41 to put YSU on the board. The Penguins hung close but the Bulldogs maintained a small lead until a design play with Colin Chambliss providing a great screen that freed Jamal Grady to sink a 10 footer giving the Penguins their first lead of the game at 19-18 with 11:41 on the clock. Youngstown State held onto a small lead through most of the remainder of the half and came away with a think 44-43 advantage at the break. The Penguins his 62% of their FG attempts and out-rebounded the Bulldogs 19-12. C Jamal Grady scored 11 and his relief, Kevin Anderson, added 8 while PF Aaron Tice dropped in 10 points. SF Keith Woodward scored 13 for Fresno State.

YSU scored the first 4 points in the 2nd half, but turnovers allowed Fresno State to come back and tie the game. But with Coach Durst shuttling players in and out to keep fresh legs on the floor, the Penguins took a 61-55 lead with 11-1/2 minutes remaining in the game. The Bulldogs then tied the game but YSU quickly pulled away and when Kevin Anderson hit a 15 footer from the right of the key, the Penguins led 76-66 with 4-1/2 minutes remaining. Fresno State cut the lead to 78-72 at the 1:47 mark. The Bulldogs were forced to foul with a minute remaining and Aaron Tice sunk both free throws to extend the lead to 8. Fresno State got a tip in and then fouled on the inbounds play. B.J. Dennis made one of two shots and the Penguins were on top by 7 with 42 seconds on the clock. The Bulldogs quickly scored and immediately fouled again. Linehan Murphy sank both shots to reestablish the 7 point advantage but now just 27 seconds were left to play. The Bulldogs missed two late 3’s and Youngstown State came away with a shocking 83-76 NCAA Tourney victory.

Although the Penguins turned the ball over 17 times to Fresno State’s 9 turnovers and gave up 24 fast break points, YSU outshot the Bulldogs 55% to 40% and dominated the boards (44-30).

Youngstown State’s offense was led by C Jamal Grady with 23 points and PF Aaron Tice who scored 21. Reserve C Kevin Anderson added 10. Fresno State’s top scorer was SF Keith Woodward with 20 points.

Coach KD Durst said, “The guys really executed our game plan to perfection. Fresno State is a darned good team so our guys were continually challenged but stepped up big each and every time. They easily could have let the atmosphere and pressure get to them, but they played like they were at home in front of our fans. We’re going to celebrate, but then we have to buckle down quickly because the level of competition goes up stiffly from here and we don’t have much time to prepare.”

“We’re just so stoked right now,” said Jamal Grady. “Gotta give all the credit to Coach Durst though. He instilled confidence in all of us that we could win, created a game plan that really worked for us, and even though we all wanted to be on the court as much as possible, he subbed us in and out so that we had a fresher team on the court throughout the game.”

The Penguins next opponent with be #14 ranked, #3 seed Alabama (26-7). The Crimson Tide beat Robert Morris 75-62 in the first round.

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Penguins Come Up Against Alabama
By Steve Porter

Youngstown State faced yet another high-scoring team in the Alabama Crimson Tide. The team was the 6th highest scoring team averaging 83.1 ppg. They also were the 7th strongest rebounding team in the nation and 4 of their 5 starters possess a height advantage over the counterpart on the Penguins. Four of their 5 starters average in double figures. When asked how his team would counter such apparent dominance, Coach Durst replied, “We respect Alabama. But we will harass and attack to the best of our ability. I have confidence in the abilities of my players and have seen their heart and been impressed with how they never back down.”

The defenses of both teams predominated as the game opened with neither team scoring a field goal until Alabama got a put-back to go down after nearly 3 minutes of play. The Crimson Tide then went on a run to put the Penguins in a 29-8 hole. Alabama’s defense continued to devastate the Penguins and the lead ballooned to 27 points before a late rally by YSU finally began putting some points on the board for them. When the first half ended, Alabama still held a commanding 51-32 lead. Even with some good shooting in the final portion of the half, YSU still only hit 37% of their first half shots and Alabama’s defense had forced 9 turnovers by the Penguins. Meanwhile the Crimson Tide hit 53% of their shots and held a 21-14 rebounding advantage. C Jamal Grady scored 10 points for the Penguins, while 3 players, led by Carlos Aggers 15, had double digit scoring.

Alabama maintained a 20 point lead throughout the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half, but Youngstown State mounted an attack that cut the deficit to 9 with 2:11 remaining. But the Penguins could get no closer and lost 81-72.

C Jamal Grady played an exceptionally strong game in his final game as a Penguin, scoring 18 points, pulling down 14 rebounds, and recording 3 blocks and a steal. Alabama’s SF Charles Johnson scored 21 and had 11 rebounds, 7 steals, and 3 blocks.

“We were outclassed for much of the game, but I was impressed by how we finally got out offense and defense working in the final 10 minutes and gave them a run for their money,” said Coach KD Durst. “I’m proud of how our team performed in their first NCAA Tournament. Great team effort, but Jamal Grady showed what he’s made of by scoring 41 points in our two games plus doing an awesome job on the boards and defensively. We’re really going to miss him.”

Levall Hart said, “Tim Lostetter, Jamal Grady and I are all graduating. When the three of us came to YSU as freshmen, we were just happy to be getting to play Division I basketball but figured it could well have been 4 years of losing basketball. Then shortly after being recruited, Coach Durst was hired and really turned things around for Penguins’ basketball. It was like a dream come true to all 3 of us to win conference championships, have 20+ win seasons, and play in the CBI, NIT and the NCAA Tournaments.”

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Horizon League Announces Awards
By Steve Porter

Youngstown State dominated the Horizon League annual awards which were announced yesterday. Paralleling the success of the Penguins as a team this year, individual on the team swept the important awards in the Horizon League.

Awards presented to those from Penguins were:

Horizon League Player of the Year: C Jamal Grady
Horizon League Freshman of the Year: SF Colin Chambliss
Horizon League Defensive Player of the year: PF Aaron Tice
Horizon League Coach of the Year: Kendrick “KD” Durst
Horizon League 1st Team All Conference: C Jamal Grady
Horizon League 2nd Team All-Conference: PF Aaron Tice

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Penguins Land Recruit
By Steve Porter

The third and last remaining scholarship was accepted by SG Noel Manning. Manning is a 6’5” HS senior from Thoreau, New Mexico. This season he averaged 17.2 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 3.6 apg, 1.8 bpg, and 1.8 spg. He’s an excellent outside shooter and shoots well from inside as well. Beyond being a good scorer, Manning is a strong ball handler and extremely athletic. He’s ranked as the 93rd best recruit in the country.

Other recruits previously signed by Youngstown State are SF James Asbury and C Will O’Neil.

In other news, 1st Assistant Coach Steve Simmons was released and Brandon Warren was hired to replace him. Warren, who is 60 and was Central Michigan’s 3rd assistant, is an exceptionally adept recruiter. Coach Durst said, “Brandon is a welcome addition to our staff. He knows the Midwest very well and is well-connected with a lot of high school and junior college coaches. Although we’ve been satisfied with our recruiting, we think Brandon can take us to the next level.”

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Coach KD Sez
By Steve Porter

Now that things have slowed down a little following the Penguins extremely successful season, I was ble to sit down with Coach KD Durst for an interview:

SP: Congratulations on a great season, Coach. At the beginning of the season, did you expect things to go so well?

KD: Thanks, Steve. I thought we’d have a good team that would compete for the top spot in the Horizon League, but as far as getting to the NCAA Tourney and winning a game there, not really. It’s just too much of a crap shoot to win the league tournament. One off night or one great game by an opponent can knock you out and only the league winner gets to the Big Dance. The team did mesh better than expected though. We had so much depth at all positions that afforded us the luxury to not have to have players on the court until they were dog-tired. And while we had some injuries, they were minor with not all that many games missed by any player.

SP: Were there any pleasant surprises in how individual players developed?

KD: We had a pretty good idea about players since most had played for us at least a season. After pre-season practice, the guys’ capabilities were pretty clear. A couple young players played better than could have been predicted though. Even though we knew Colin Chambliss would be an adequate SF as a freshman, he was stronger than we anticipated, particularly on the boards. And sophomore SG William Swan steadily improved throughout the entire year, so much so that he eventually won a starting role. Both he and Chambliss turned out to be very good outside shooters and I expect that they will be more comfortable next season putting shots up so that will improve their scoring, even though it was good this season. Of course we were absolutely sure that Jamal Grady would be out go-to guy and he was. But Aaron Tice was also extremely strong inside, particularly as a rebounder and awesome defender. Another guy whose been on the team all four years I’ve been here is walk-on Kevin Anderson. This season we really needed him to come in and spell Jamal and Aaron because the only non-starting big man on a scholarship we had to come off the bench was Kent Jones. Kent did a very good job in that role, but we needed one more guy and Kevin came up big for us. Most every game he was able to produce points for us.

SP: So you’re losing Jamal Grady, Kevin Anderson, and two point guards, Levall Hart and Tim Lostetter, to graduation. What’s that portend for next season?

KD: All 4 are leaving big shoes to fill and I can’t expect we will have anyone of Jamal’s stature. First though, the guys who are coming back should even be stronger than they were this season, so that’s a plus. We have Pat White, who was ineligible this year because he transferred to us, who we think can play either SG or PG and he played well as a freshman starter at Oregon. Then LeRoy Delea was a redshirt freshman this season and we hope he will live up to his top-ranked billing he had as a recruit and give us depth up front. The three recruits we got this year all hopefully can come in and contribute for us as freshmen. Two of them, James Asbury and Noel Manley, were ranked in the top 100 nationally and the third, Will O’Neil, looks like he could be a very strong rebounder as well as getting his share of points. Losing Jamal and Kevin up front could mean we need to shift our focus from inside to outside next season, but we’ll see.

SP: You mentioned the good recruits you landed this year, but yet you have changed out your assistant coach responsible for recruiting. What was the reason?

KD: Really I felt it was just time to make a small change in our coaching staff and being able to get Brandon Warren on board was a real opportunity for us to strengthen what already was a good recruiting operation we’ve had.

SP: And speaking of coaching jobs, rumors are that you had several offers including Washington State in the Pac-12 and Texas Christian in the Big 12. Were you tempted to leave?

KD: You know, it’s not surprising that programs do some inquiring after your team makes it to the NCAA Tourney. I’ll be honest, it’s flattering. But I still think I have some unfinished business here at Youngstown State so I never gave serious consideration to any of those inquiries. My only concern is that I’ve been trying to get facility upgrades here, but the money has yet to be made available. If we really want to be more successful recruiting and developing our players, we need to have better facilities.

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YSU Prepares for The 2020-2021 Recruiting Year
By Steve Porter

Youngstown State’s recruit class last season has been rated as 40th best in the nation. The next best recruit class within the Horizon League was Milwaukee at #86. But Coach KD Durst feels the program is ready to move up yet higher in the coming years. Because of that Coach Simmons, who had been the recruiting coordinator, was replaced a month ago by Brandon Warren.

When asked about his goals for this coming season, 1st Assistant Coach Warren said, “We have 4 scholarships to award this year so we’re going to have to work hard and have a little luck on our side as well. As in previous years, we’re still going to focus on the Midwest region due to a limited budget. I’d really like to be able to aggressively recruit on a national scale, but we’ll have to be content to do that on the secondary market, which is what I call the players still available in the spring.”

With regard to the type of recruits the Penguins would like to land, Warren laughingly replied, “I’d love to get a guy who can score 30 points, grab 15 rebounds, and dish out 10 assists each and every game.” He then quickly added, “OK, I guess you wanted me to discuss reality instead of dreams. We really need a couple big men, one of whom has the ability to step right in and challenge for a starting role, and a point guard. Then we can go after the best player available regardless of position for the fourth scholarship.”