BEAVER TOWNSHIP – When Ethan Faulkner officially took over the reins of the Youngstown State men’s basketball program on April 1, he already had a plan in place, and it was anything but an April Fool’s joke.

In the five weeks since becoming the Penguins’ 14th head mentor, Faulkner has assembled a staff he is comfortable working with, tirelessly recruited players from both the high school ranks and transfer portal, made sure the players on his roster know he is committed to them while putting the finishing touches on a schedule the Penguin fan base would most appreciate.

He has hit the ground running with no let-up in sight.

“It has really been exciting. I feel very good about where we are at and the direction in which we are headed,” Faulkner told the Curbstone Coaches during Monday’s meeting at Avion Banquet Center. “We have our staff in place, are getting closer to being done with recruiting and are working on our schedule really hard so yes, we are making a lot of progress.”

Learning from and sharing his insight with former head coach Jerrod Calhoun over the past five seasons will be a noticeable feature to those attending games this season.

“A lot of what we will do is going to remain the same offensively,” Faulkner said. “Coach Calhoun and I share a lot of the same philosophies on how the game should be played but I can tell you this, what made (Calhoun) so good were the relationships that he built, not just with our community but with our players. We are certainly going to do that to the best of our ability as well.”

To date, players Faulkner and staff have added include Elijah Guillory of Moon Area (PA), Shaheed Solebo of Lane Technical High School in Chicago, Nico Galette of Sacred Heart University, former Canisius guard Siem Uitjtendaal of the Netherlands and Ty Harper of California, one of the top-rated NAIA players in the country last season.

“We are really excited about what we have been able to add, not just with the portal but through the high school ranks, too,” Faulkner added. “We have two high school players signed, three portal players signed with another commitment from a portal player, we’ve got two left to go and are working hard to get those filled.

“I think we have had a lot of success with the portal because we play a fun style of basketball, have a great fan base, the renovation to our gym is something that makes people excited and obviously our NIL is a selling point as well. Much like the last two years, we feel like we have done a great job of being able to make great additions through the portal.”

Their upcoming schedule includes a pair of home games versus Mid-American Conference foes.

“We are close to finalizing our schedule for next season,” Faulkner said. “We still must finalize our guarantee or buy games from the high majors and are working hard on that. We have an MTE [multi-team event] where we are going to Stephen F. Austin to play the Lumberjacks, Presbyterian and Monmouth and have both Toledo and Western Michigan of the Mid-American Conference coming to our place. Those are two really good home games.

“We will play our two non-Division I teams in Westminster and Bethany like we did last year so we just have one home and home series left to fill and need to finalize our buy games.”

The offseason will be anything but a vacation for both staff and players.

“The emphasis is on skill development but what we are really going to focus on in June is getting guys better and really building relationships with one another,” Faulkner noted. “We want to lay the foundation for what we want our culture to look like.”

Next week, YSU head bowling coach Doug Kuberski, this year’s Bill Straub Division I National Coach of the Year and his team will be honored for their third-place finish in Division I, their highest ever final ranking in program history.

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