Staff photo / Neel Madhavan Youngstown State sophomore guard Dom Aekins (right) drives to the basket while being defended by freshman guard Kaelen Destin during a practice on Thursday at Zidian Family Arena.

YOUNGSTOWN — Throughout the course of last season, the Youngstown State men’s basketball coaches and former players stressed the importance of connectivity — something the team often lacked and kept it from consistently reaching its full potential.

The Penguins’ shortcomings, particularly defensively, often stemmed from being disconnected at times on the court, which led to late rotations or mismatches that opposing teams exploited.

As a result, head coach Ethan Faulkner has continued to emphasize connectivity this summer, as YSU looks to build chemistry amongst its reconstructed roster of 13 new players.

“Nothing that we do is going to give us a better chance to win than building the connection of our team, and that’s something that’s going to be really, really important for this group,” Faulkner said. “It’s going to be important for any team in the country. The most connected teams are the teams that are going to give themselves the best chance to win. That’s what we’re trying to build.”

Finding that connection starts off the court, which is why after their on-court workouts on Tuesday, the Penguins watched the NBA Draft and ate pizza together that evening.

“We got a young team, trying to switch it up a little bit, play fast, play to our advantage — everybody got legs,” sophomore guard Jaiden Haynes said. “It’s fun. I like the group of guys. We’ve been spending a good amount of time with each other. I’m really excited. I’m really enjoying myself.”

In the transfer portal era, especially at the mid-major level, most teams undergo significant roster upheaval each offseason.

YSU was no exception. The Penguins underwent significantly more roster turnover this offseason than in years past, returning just one player from last season, while adding 13 new faces.

“Part of being a connected team is having team-first guys, and that’s something we’ve certainly tried to do our research on in terms of going through the recruiting process with each and every one of these guys,” Faulkner said.

With a limited window for a new team to build connectivity before the start of the season in November, that amplifies the importance of summer workouts and the time the Penguins have together in the coming weeks.

YSU broke things down into smaller groups for the first two days of workouts earlier this week, then joined together for the first full-team practice on Thursday, as it works to install its offensive concepts and defensive principles.

“We’ve been doing a ton of teaching, installing our offensive concepts,” Faulkner said. “Wanted to, No. 1, get our group together for the first time, and continue to try to build connection with our team, but also see how much progress we’ve made over the first three days of really understanding what we’re trying to accomplish.

“We’ve had great energy, great pop. Again, we’re not looking for perfection right now, we’re looking for progress day after day, and I thought we’ve had a good first week.”

Faulkner said the Penguins are breaking the summer down into two-week increments and will follow a similar format next week, before then diving deeper as they get further into summer.

“We’ll build that up into more and more practices as we go through,” he said. “But early in this first two weeks, really trying to get our offensive concepts installed, we’ll build up into defense in week three and four and culminate in week five and six, where we’ll go eight practices in a row, obviously trying to develop on both sides of the ball.”