Correspondent file photo / David Dermer. YSU guard Bryson Dawkins handles the ball while being defended by Robert Morris’ Ryan Prather Jr. (left) and Ta’Zir Smith during the Penguins’ loss to the Colonials on Feb. 7 at Zidian Family Arena.

YOUNGSTOWN — Will the real Youngstown State men’s basketball team please stand up?

Coming off a surprise road victory at Oakland on Thursday, followed by a loss to Detroit Mercy on Sunday, it’s been difficult to anticipate which Penguins team will show up on any given night.

YSU has been in a fight to figure out its identity for much of the season, whether it’s the team that recently won four-of-six games or the team that lost seven straight Horizon League games from December to January.

“We keep fighting. We’re going to keep fighting,” head coach Ethan Faulkner said during his postgame interview on ESPN+ on Thursday. “Obviously we’ve had some ups and downs this year. But our best is plenty good enough, we’ve proven that time and time again. We’ve got to sustain our best for longer periods of time.”

At its best, YSU has proven that it is capable of beating anyone. When the Penguins are firing on all cylinders, they’ve beaten teams like Grand Canyon, Purdue Fort Wayne and Oakland on the road. They also have home wins against Wright State and Green Bay.

“We have stretches of really good basketball. That (Purdue Fort Wayne) game was a complete 40 minutes,” Faulkner said during his press conference last week. “I thought our ball movement, our pace, our spacing on the offensive end of the floor was excellent in that game. Obviously you make 16 threes, you’re going to have a good night offensively when you do that.”

YSU’s problem is that it hasn’t consistently sustained that for multiple games. Sometimes, the Penguins haven’t sustained it from half-to-half or even stretches of individual games.

“That level of team is plenty good enough to win a bunch of games coming down the stretch, but we’ve gotta be able to do that consistently,” Faulkner said. “We can’t do that for a five-minute stretch here and not do it for a five-minute stretch there and think that’s going to have the same results when it’s all said and done.”

For example, YSU led UNC Greensboro by 18 at halftime back on Nov. 23 in the Jacksonville Classic. The Penguins then collapsed in the second half and lost by six. Against IU Indy on Jan. 30, YSU trailed by five at halftime, but then rallied by outscoring the Jaguars by 14 in the second half to win by nine.

Finally, most recently last week against Robert Morris, the Penguins opened the second half on a 24-4 run to make up an 11-point halftime deficit. But then couldn’t sustain it over the final 10 minutes and again lost by six.

“For whatever reason, we just can’t sustain our level of focus and attention to detail,” Faulkner said. “Whether it’s not moving the ball offensively, whether it’s a quick, rushed shot, which we had several of in that (Robert Morris) game, or whether it’s simple execution of your actions. We came out of multiple timeouts in that game against Robert Morris after sitting down and talking about what we’re going to run. I’m not even talking about execution — catch location, screen angles and just running the pattern the way it’s supposed to be run, plays that we’ve been running since day one, we just don’t even run it correctly.”

Faulkner stressed how small YSU’s margin for error is, particularly in Horizon League play. The Penguins have played 13 games decided by six points or less, but are 3-10 in those games after Sunday’s loss to the Titans.

For the most part, YSU’s issues haven’t necessarily been on the offensive end, with the Penguins averaging a hair under 80 points per game. However, even though the team has the second-best scoring defense (72.7 ppg) in the league, most of YSU’s shortcomings have come on that end of the floor between defensive rebounding and not maintaining its defensive principles when guarding the ball.

“You’re going to get tired of hearing me say this, but simple execution — adhering to your principles and doing what you’re supposed to do,” Faulkner said. “Obviously we can layer that in anything that you’re talking about defensively, whether it’s guarding the basketball, whether it’s ball screen coverage, whether it’s how you’re guarding off ball, screening when the shot goes up or blocking out and going and rebounding the basketball.”

As a result, Faulkner said YSU has made “drastic changes” to how it plays defense throughout the season.

The team’s “foundational principles,” which is how it played defense going back to last year, emphasized keeping the ball out of the middle of the floor, being aggressive and disruptive on the ball and in passing lanes and getting up and icing ball screens.

Instead, the Penguins are now focusing more on containment, keeping the ball in front of them and not icing the ball screen, but playing more drop coverage with center Imanuel Zorgvol, according to Faulkner.

“If you go back to that Fort Wayne game, what you’re trying to do is get teams to shoot mid-range jump shots with that type of scheme defensively,” Faulkner said. “We forced a bunch of them and got all the rebounds. You have a lot of success defensively when you do that. But again, it doesn’t matter which way we’re going with it, if you can’t adhere to your foundational principles defensively, you’re going to have mistakes, and teams are going to burn you for that.”

Next up, YSU returns home on Wednesday to face Cleveland State at 6:30 p.m. at Zidian Family Arena.