Returning YSU guard EJ Farmer goes up for a layup during the season finale against Cleveland State on March 7 at the Beeghly Center.

YOUNGSTOWN — Since hitting the ground running when he was hired on April 1, things have finally started to settle down slightly for new Youngstown State men’s basketball coach Ethan Faulkner.

One of the first things that Faulkner was tasked with when he took the job was to round out the Penguins’ roster since YSU had just six players returning from last season’s squad.

After he was hired, Faulkner and the Penguins’ new coaching staff added 10 new players to finalize the roster, which included seven transfers and two high school signees. YSU’s new additions slowly started arriving on campus and began working out and practicing together about three weeks ago.

“I think each of them bring great value,” Faulkner said. “I think all of them are going to have an impact at some level on our team and I think we’ve done a good job of mixing in younger guys, older guys and guys from different levels of college basketball. I think what I’ve been most optimistic about is our guys are excited to be here, excited to be in the gym and work. They’re eager to learn, that’s why we’ve made so much progress over the last three weeks.”

From the transfer portal, YSU signed junior guard Jason Nelson from VCU, fifth-year guard Ty Harper from The Master’s (an NAIA school in California), fifth-year guard Siem Uijtendaal from Canisius, junior Juwan Maxey from Macomb Community College in Michigan, fifth-year Nico Galette from Sacred Heart, junior Cris Carroll from Coffeeville Community College in Kansas and sophomore Kevin Hamilton from Arkansas-Fort Smith.

“This whole month has been amazing, just getting to know the guys,” said senior guard EJ Farmer, one of YSU’s six returners. “With us six guys returning, it helps so much with the new guys coming in, so we can show them the culture that we’ve been talking about with Coach Faulkner.”

This past season, Nelson appeared in 35 of VCU’s 38 games, averaging 4.9 points per game. Harper was a top-100 recruit coming out of high school and played at Louisiana and Eastern Washington before arriving at The Master’s last season, where he was an NAIA Second-Team All-American averaging 20.2 points per game.

A native of The Netherlands, Uijtendaal averaged 13.3 points per game in his final season at Canisius, where he started 22 games, but missed eight of the team’s final nine games with an injury.

Maxey developed a reputation as a sharpshooter and scorer during his two seasons at Macomb, where he owned a 12.7 points-per-game scoring average during his JUCO career. Meanwhile, Carroll was doing much of the same at Coffeeville, where he averaged 18.8 points and 7.7 rebounds per game.

Hamilton is a northeast Ohio native who played at Akron’s St. Vincent-St. Mary in high school and was a part of back-to-back state championship teams.

Finally, Galette was a two-time all-conference (NEC) performer at Sacred Heart, where he scored 1,351 points and pulled down 722 rebounds during his career.

“I think we’ve recruited to our system,” Faulkner said. “With our forwards — a lot of versatility, with guys that play inside and play outside. With our wings, we have guys that can really attack closeouts and guys who can make shots. Our point guards and combo guards are really able to play off ball screens and run our team. Those are the kinds of things we were looking for and I think we’ve done a good job finding that.”

YSU’s two freshman additions are 6-foot-5 guard Elijah Guillory from Moon Township, Pa. and 6-foot-4 guard Shaheed Solebo from Lane Tech High School in Chicago.

“I feel like as a newcomer, I bring a lot of energy,” Guillory said. “There’s a lot more I need to do and bring skillwise though, like off ball movement.”

Guillory said he’s already noticed a significant difference between the high school and college game since he’s arrived on campus.

“The pace for sure is a lot faster — the energy and intensity,” Guillory said. “Guys are way more experienced. But I’m starting to learn and get a feel for it.”

Faulkner said everyone is on campus so far, except for Uijtendaal and Carroll. Uijtendaal is currently playing for the Dutch national team, while Carroll is finishing up a couple of classes academically, but Faulkner added that both are expected to arrive on campus by July or early August.

“I think we’ve just gotta continue to expand on our system,” Faulkner said. “Get guys to really understand what we want it to look like offensively and defensively, and continue to really establish our culture, which is something that we’ve also put a major emphasis on this summer. I think once we get Siem and Cris here, we’ll get a better picture of what this thing is going to look like in terms of our team and our ceiling.”

Have an interesting story? Contact Neel Madhavan by email at nmadhavan@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @NeelMadhavan.