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Penguins men roll

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes YSU senior Michael Akuchie moves and scores during the first half in the Penguins 74-58 win over UIC, he had 16 points.

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State men’s basketball got off on the right foot Thursday, kicking off its Horizon League tournament run with the entire starting five reaching double-figures in a 74-58 win over UIC.

“I was so proud of our guys,” coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “Locked in throughout the week, I felt very very confident coming into this game. … We had five guys in double-figures, held a team to 58 points, just a great effort. I’m very, very proud of them.”

Michael Akuchie was a driving force for the Penguins on both ends of the floor, leading the team with 16 points on offense and dousing the Flames’ bigs on the defensive side of the ball.

“I knew I had to be better guarding the bigs tonight,” Akuchie said. “Going into the game I was like ‘Okay, I need to make sure I’m doing my work early, making sure I was smart, making sure I was boxing out and doing the little things.”

Akuchie finished the night with a double-double, bringing down 10 boards.

“We talked about three things, first thing was defending the ball, the ball’s the most important thing,” Calhoun said. “Second thing was our post defense. Last year they beat us up on some post defense, and we talked about it being a one-shot game.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes YSU senior Christian Bentley reacts following a massive putback dunk by Akuchie in the second half.

“If it’s a one-shot game, they can’t beat us, and we weren’t going to let that happen.

A big part of YSU’s win came off second-chance points and points off turnovers, where the Penguins outscored UIC 13-4 and 16-8 respectively.

“It’s good to get game one for sure, because there is no game two if you don’t play well,” Calhoun said.

Naz Bohannon followed up Akuchie finishing the night with 15 points. Darius Quisenberry scored 12 and both Garrett Covington and Shemar Rathan-Mayes added 10.

Bohannon had nine second-half points, which helped the Penguins begin to pull away.

“He kept saying ‘Just get me the ball’, and he made me look good again, he’s done that quite a bit,” Calhoun said. “When Garrett and DQ and Shemar and Mike (Akuchie) and Geoff Hamperian, and those guys are making shots, it’s hard to double Naz.

“Naz is such a willing passer, I thought he did a great job making big plays. We ran good offense, probably could have scored a few more, but the kids really executed.”

UIC’s leading scorer was Teyvion Kirk, who finished with 13 points.

The Penguins (16-11, 10-11) advance to the second round of the tournament on Tuesday, where they’ll face the third-seeded Oakland Golden Grizzlies on the road.

While YSU was 0-2 against Oakland in the regular season, the only record the team is focusing on is being 1-0 every game.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes YSU freshman Shemar Rathan-Mayes shoots and scores a 3-pointer during the first half, he had 10.

“They’ve got a little bit of everything,” Calhoun said. “They’re very very balanced, they’re going to play a ton of zone, and press us a little bit in that zone. We’ve got a couple days to get ready, and they did beat us twice, but now we’re 1-0.

“We’re not going to talk about that, being 0-2, but I’m sure it’s gonna motivate our guys.”

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