Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Youngstown State guard Brandon Rush hoists a 3-pointer during the Penguins’ win over Detroit Mercy on Wednesday.

YOUNGSTOWN — Brandon Rush is back.

Despite averaging 11.4 points per game this season, Rush had been going through a bit of a scoring and shooting slump, by his standards, throughout this month.

“Honestly, I feel like it helped me be a better teammate,” Rush said during Youngstown State’s weekly press conference on Monday. “When I’m not doing as well, celebrating other people’s successes, it helped me be a better person, too. So it was frustrating, but it’s basketball. If a little round ball doesn’t go into a hole, it shouldn’t dictate how I feel about other people and stuff like that.”

After a five-game stretch during the month of February in which Rush averaged just 5.6 points and shot 4-for-25 from beyond the arc, he’s once again found his scoring and shooting touch.

Rush’s return began with 13 points and three made threes Sunday at Green Bay. But he validated that outing with his best scoring and shooting performance since Jan. 20 by scoring 18 points on six made threes Wednesday to lead YSU to a 69-55 victory over Detroit Mercy in the Penguins’ regular season finale.

“I gotta give credit to my teammates, but I also gotta thank God also because He gives me the strength to be able to do this stuff,” Rush said after the game Wednesday. “Credit to my team for finding me, because yeah, I come off screens and everything, but there’s more to it. It’s your big man setting the screen, it’s your point guard finding you. So all I have to do is hit the shot. I’m doing the easy part. They’re doing the part that’s pretty tough.”

Throughout his scoring and shooting woes, Rush stayed in the gym working on his shot, trying to find his rhythm again.

“It’s not like I don’t know how to shoot the ball, it just sometimes doesn’t go your way,” Rush said. “It doesn’t stop you from working. So I just kept on working.”

Despite Rush starting the first 28 games of the season, head coach Jerrod Calhoun elected to instead start freshman center Gabe Dynes and bring Rush off the bench as a sixth man the past three games, with his shot not falling like it usually does.

But that was never an issue for Rush.

“That’s what we try to stress in our program, that ‘we’ over ‘me’ mentality,” Calhoun said Monday. “So Brandon didn’t have a problem with it. We met about it before we even left (for Wisconsin), and he just said, ‘Coach, I’ll do whatever you need me to do in order (for us) to win,’ and it happened to work.”

At halftime against the Titans, Rush was 1-for-3 from the floor and had three points on one made triple. But he came alive in the second half.

During a three-minute stretch midway through the second half, Rush hit four straight threes, which helped the Penguins finally blow the game open against Detroit Mercy.

“We shot 12-for-26 for (46.2%) (from three) — he’s a big part of it. He made half the shots, so that’s what he does. He’s an instant scorer,” Calhoun said Wednesday. “Credit to Coach (Ethan) Faulkner, he was in my ear about some different actions for B-Rush out of timeouts and early in the game. Brandon is one of those guys that can really stretch the D and that opens things up for DJ (Burns) and Ziggy (Reid), and (Brett Thompson) getting downhill and Bryson (Langdon) on our wings. So when he’s making shots, it’s certainly a benefit.”

Rush’s return to form comes at an ideal time as the Penguins wrap up the regular season and begin preparation for next week’s Horizon League tournament.

“It really just shows how deep we are,” said Burns, who had his 21st double-double of the season against the Titans with 10 points and a career-high 19 rebounds. Burns also set the school single-season Division I rebound mark on Wednesday. “We know as a team, and our coaches know how deep we are. But it just reminds everybody in America how dangerous we are and how dangerous we can be when all cylinders are clicking.

“Brandon really lifted us up because a lot of guys didn’t have their best offensive game, and Brandon was there for us. Likewise, whenever he wasn’t doing good, we all did good. That’s one of the greatest things about playing with a team like this with guys where anybody and everybody can do everything. There’s not too much on the team that somebody can’t do, and I’m just thankful to be a part of a team like this.”

With the win, the Penguins secure a top-four seed for the Horizon League tournament next week, which means YSU has a first-round bye and will host a quarterfinal game on Thursday, March 7. Tip is slated for 7 p.m. at the Beeghly Center. Tickets can be purchased online at ysusports.com or by calling 330-941-1978 starting at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 29.

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