Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes. YSU's Bryson Dawkins (right) drives to the lane and scores on Oakland's Isaac Garrett on Thursday at Zidian Family Arena. Dawkins led the Penguins with 20 points.

YOUNGSTOWN — During his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Ethan Faulkner called Oakland one of the five best offensive teams that he’s faced since he’s been at Youngstown State and in the Horizon League.

The Golden Grizzlies lived up to that moniker on Thursday, shooting a blistering 55.3% overall and 53.3% from three, as they held on to hand the Penguins an 85-83 defeat, their third straight loss in Horizon League play.

“Really good offensive basketball team,” Faulkner said after the game. “They’re very hard to guard. You make decisions as a coach in what you’re going to try to take away, and even as you do that, they’ve got counters to those decisions — elite point guard play, great post play, shoot the ball at a very good clip.

“This game was lost on the defensive end of the floor, just our inability to guard them. It wasn’t for lack of effort — our guys competed their tails off. But a lot of that had to do with who we were playing and how good they were offensively tonight.”

The bulk of Oakland’s offense came from two players — Isaac Garrett and Brett White, who combined for 49 points.

Garrett continuously bullied the Penguins down low, finishing with a season-high 27 points and 14 rebounds. Whenever YSU brought help to defend him in the post, Oakland would simply find White on the outside, who knocked down five 3-pointers to add 22 points.

As the Penguins struggled to defend them man-to-man, they tried to mix in some zone.

“That’s the first time we’ve played an extended amount of zone all season,” Faulkner said. “We went zone late in the game. I thought we really stymied him a little bit. Allowed us, when we were down six, to get back and actually take a lead in the game. … That was really our counter. We were trying to mix our defenses up and try to slow them down some with the zone defense.”

YSU led by as many as 13 in the first half, but scored just three points over the final six minutes, as Oakland cut the deficit to 43-40 by halftime.

The Grizzlies took their first lead of the day, 61-59, on a pair of free throws by Brody Robinson with just under 12 minutes left. From there, the Penguins had to play catch up just to keep things from slipping away.

YSU trailed by six with about seven minutes left. From there, Cris Carroll knocked down a corner three and Bryson Dawkins finished a three-point play to tie things up once again.

Dawkins helped carry the Penguins offensively in the second half as they racked up their foul total. YSU finished with 24 fouls, while Dawkins scored 16 of his season-high 20 points in the second half.

“I let the game come to me. I’m not necessarily just looking to go out there and score a lot,” Dawkins said. “First half, I was passive, making a lot of good plays for my team, just seeing what they gave me and everything else just opened up. After what they seen in the first half, then I guess they just left me alone and that’s when lanes started opening up for me.”

In the final minutes, Oakland just made more plays down the stretch to close things out.

With YSU leading by two, White knocked down a three from the wing off an offensive rebound to give Oakland a one-point lead with 97 seconds left.

After a pair of free throws from Garrett, the Penguins found themselves down three. Jason Nelson drove the lane into traffic and completed an and-1 to tie things up at 83 with 43 ticks left.

With a chance to take the lead, Oakland grabbed another offensive rebound, and Buru Naivalurua put back what became the game-winning layup.

“Two or three mistakes on defense, two or three mistakes on offense, a breakdown here or there — a lot of times, those are the difference in the game,” Faulkner said. “As good as we rebounded the basketball for the majority of the game, we didn’t come up with the two biggest defensive rebounds of the game, and they scored on both of those late.”

With 10.1 seconds left, YSU had the ball with a chance to tie or win it. But out of a timeout, the best look the Penguins could muster was a forced, off-balance three from Nelson that fell short of the rim.

“Coach (Greg) Kampe, he’s known for going man-to-man in those situations,” Faulkner said. “We knew that they went man-to-man the play before, when Bryson drove and scored it. They went back to the tandem coming out of the timeout. We were trying to get calls in that we could run against man or against zone. We were trying to get Cris off a stagger screen on the baseline, hoping that they would pay him close attention as he’s coming off for a three to win the game, and we were trying to get a slip off of that. They just did a good job guarding it. Credit to them.”

The Penguins head on the road to face Northern Kentucky at 4 p.m. on Sunday, before returning home for a pair of home games against Purdue Fort Wayne on Wednesday and Bryant & Stratton College on Jan. 9.