Correspondent photo / David Dermer. YSU guard Jason Nelson tries to finish at the basket while being defended by Robert Morris'Darius Livingston on Saturday at Zidian Family Arena.

YOUNGSTOWN — When the Youngstown State men’s basketball team plays to its potential, the Penguins look like they did on Wednesday when they beat Purdue Fort Wayne by 29.

YSU’s problem this season, however, has been an inability to consistently maintain that level of play on a game-to-game basis.

On Saturday against Robert Morris, the Penguins played like that for the first 10 minutes of the second half as YSU climbed out of a halftime hole and took the lead, but couldn’t sustain it late, falling to the Colonials 72-66 in the second game of the day’s doubleheader at Zidian Family Arena.

“We have to play more consistent basketball throughout the 40 minutes,” YSU head coach Ethan Faulkner said. “Can’t play in spurts. When we do what we’re supposed to do, we’re a pretty good team. When we don’t do what we’re supposed to do, we’re not a very good team.”

All season long, Faulkner has emphasized how small YSU’s margin for error is night-to-night. Yet, the Penguins have been on the wrong side of that more often than not this year, with Saturday’s loss being the team’s ninth defeat by six points or less.

In the first half, some of the same issues that highlighted YSU’s seven-game Horizon League losing streak from Dec. 17 to Jan. 17 popped up — the Penguins struggled on the glass and couldn’t get stops defensively, as missed assignments led to easy baskets for the Colonials.

Robert Morris outrebounded YSU 19-10, while shooting 58.6% overall and 50% from three en route to a 41-30 halftime lead.

Down by 11 at the break, the Penguins opened the second half on a run. Five minutes into the half, RMU’s lead was gone. Five minutes after that, YSU led by nine, its largest lead of the day.

When all was said and done, the Penguins came out of halftime on a 24-4 run. Tae Blackshear hit three 3-pointers in four possessions during that stretch.

“(We had) ball movement on offense and rebounding on defense,” Faulkner said.

The Colonials didn’t roll over though. Down by eight with about eight minutes left, RMU went on a 12-0 run to permanently retake the lead.

DeSean Goode played a key part of the Colonials’ resurgence, finishing with a game-high 24 points on 9-of-11 shooting.

“Lack of execution,” Faulkner said. “Obviously they went zone. Thought we got some great looks in the zone — some of them didn’t go in when we executed our stuff. They were mixing in zone to man, so we were trying to run some actions that would work against both. But our play after the play, when it got down to those last five or six minutes, wasn’t very good. We didn’t move the ball very well, back to standing around offensively again.”

Cris Carroll did his best to keep the Penguins in it late, but YSU couldn’t get the defensive stops it needed on the other end. Carroll finished with 20 points for the Penguins, while Bryson Dawkins had 16 and Blackshear had 12.

Next up for the Penguins is their annual Michigan road swing. YSU will visit Oakland on Thursday at 7 p.m., before taking on Detroit Mercy on Feb. 15 at 1 p.m.

“I’m not a very good loser. Never have been, never will be,” Faulkner said. “But my mindset is to show up here on Monday and try to figure out how we can play some more consistent basketball.”