YSU Women To Host Duquesne In First Round of WNIT

[IAA Fan]

The Youngstown State women's basketball team will play host to Duquesne, which finished third in the Atlantic 10 Conference, in the first round of the Women's NIT on Thursday at the Beeghly Center.

The game is presented locally by Medical Mutual of Ohio, the official healthcare provider of Youngstown State University.

The official game time for the contest will be announced on Tuesday.

Tickets for the contest are $10 for adults and $5 for children ages 3-12. The YSU Athletic Ticket Office will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday. Tickets will be available at the Beeghly Center one hour prior to game time on Thursday.

Both teams finished with identical 21-10 records for the 2014-15 campaign. ESPN.com has the Dukes as one of the first four out of this year's NCAA Tournament field which was announced earlier this evening.

The winner of the YSU-Duquesne game will play the winner of the Stetson-Richmond game in the round of 32. That contest is Friday at Stetson.

YSU last played Duquesne in Wilmington, N.C., on Nov. 25, 2006. The Penguins lead the all-time series 8-5, including a 6-0 mark at home. The last contest in Youngstown between the programs was on Jan. 5, 1991. The 2006 meeting was the lone matchup between the two team's in that span.

It marks the second time in three years that Youngstown State will play in the Women's National Invitational Tournament.

Youngstown State joins fellow conference members Wright State and Cleveland State in the field of 64. YSU and Cleveland State are the first Horizon League programs to earn an at-large berth since the tournament starting awarding automatic bids to each conference in 2007.

"I'm so proud of our team for the work they put in to clinch our second postseason appearance in the last three years," Coach John Barnes said. "I'm thrilled for Heidi (Schlegel) and Tish (Latisha Walker) that their careers will continue, and they were the driving force behind our push toward the end of the year."

YSU is 1-0 in home WNIT contests having defeated Indiana State in the opening round in 2013. The Penguins beat the Sycamores, 63-51.

[OleYSUfan]

Congratulations Lady Penguins and coach Barnes!

Duquesne will be no easy task, they are in the A-10 conference and had played some very tough competition.
They beat Pittsburgh by 10 and beat Kent State by 24, but lost to Green Bay by 32. They have a balanced offensive attack with 3 ladies averaging over 10 points per game and their rebounding looks good.

I hope for a good turn out and the Lady Penguins put it all together to win this game.

Go Lady Penguins!!     

[ysubigred]

Go lady's I love this 

[Spiderlegs]

From the Vindy article, sounds like they had a choice. Glad they took the WNIT over WBI, even if it's one and done in WNIT. I'm looking for a good night of highly competitive basketball.

[OleYSUfan]

The Horizon League girls did poorly in the WNIT first round games and also the first round NCAA game. The scores were:  Michigan 72  Cleveland St. 50, Toledo 72  Wright St. 64 and Duquesne 72  YSU 54. In the NCAA ; Green Bay lost to Princeton 80 to 70.

The Horizon League lady teams have a long, long way to go to be a force on the national scene. Yes, YSU ladies had a good season, but the competition on a whole was weak. Green Bay has dominated the Horizon League for years, but they had a poor showing against Princeton.

The loss of Schlegal and Walker will be an enormous void on next years team. I hope Coach Barnes can pull off some kind of wizardry and put a competitive team together.

Note: our former coach ladies coach, now at  Ohio Univ. are playing in the 2nd round.     

[IAA Fan]

I don't know about that ...Princeton is what ...31-0 this season? Yes UWGB should have beaten them, but it was a bad draw.

[ValleyTalk]

In the NCAA ; Green Bay lost to Princeton 80 to 70.

Pretty sure I heard a lot about that Princeton team as they were the ONLY undefeated team in women's college basketball during this past season. One thing to lose to a mediocre opponent, but Princeton was damn good.

[Penguin Nation]

Note: our former coach ladies coach, now at  Ohio Univ. are playing in the 2nd round.   

Bolden's Bobcats were eliminated in the first round.

[Spiderlegs]

I hate to get into the Boldon vs. Barnes comparison because of the success of both, but it's worth noting that not only were there seven freshman this year on the YSU team but conversely only four players with more than one year of on-the-court D-I playing experience, two of them being transfers. What Barnes engineered was pretty significant, and he did it without swearing at his players in time outs so loud that the whole gym could hear and he didn't imitate Boldon's press-conference hissy fits about how poor YSU was compared to MAC teams or Boldon's public threat to turn down the WNIT bid because his team wasn't playing well enough. Boldon didn't want to be here and Barnes does. Everybody got what they wanted.
 
It probably won't be until this year's freshmen are seniors that we are going to get the kind of team Barnes wants. Let's be patient. If he accomplishes his goal, the payoff for our WBB program will be huge.