Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes
Youngstown State junior guard Jason Nelson, left, finishes in the lane against Robert Morris on Dec. 4 in Moon Township, Pa.

YOUNGSTOWN — The start of Youngstown State’s season last year mirrors this season’s in a variety of ways.

Last year, the Penguins began the season 3-3 before then winning seven straight games. This season, after starting out 2-5, YSU has now won six straight games after victories last week against Wright State and USC-Upstate.

“I certainly think we’re getting there,” head coach Ethan Faulkner said during a press conference last week. “Definitely making improvements on both sides of the ball. Still think we’ve really yet to put a complete game together in terms of both ends of the floor.”

Just like last year, YSU has a plethora of new players that needed to figure out how to play together. They’ve all had to figure out their roles, while finding how they best fit in YSU’s system.

The more games they’ve played together, the more they’ve each started to figure things out.

“It was definitely going to take a couple games,” junior guard Jason Nelson said. “Over the summer, I feel like we didn’t really have our full potential because we had players getting hurt every now and then, so we didn’t really gel together and get connected and all that. But recently after a couple games, I feel like we’re clicking.”

During their current six-game winning streak, the Penguins have put it together on both ends of the court.

MAKING SHOTS

The Penguins struggled on offense to open the season.

Through its first seven games, YSU averaged just 65.0 points per game and was shooting 36.2% overall and 23.9% from 3-point range.

Since then, the Penguins have found their shooting touch. Now after 13 games, YSU has averaged 74.3 points per game, while seeing its shooting numbers go up to 42.0% overall and 28.4% from beyond the arc.

“Offensively, it’s just about sharing the basketball,” Faulkner said. “We’ve done a much better job of that. You look at our assist-turnover (ratio), the way that it is improving and has improved over the last couple of weeks. We’re seeing the game, and we’re putting a major emphasis on that every day in practice and in terms of how we’re structuring our practice to make sure that we’re getting those reads day-in and day-out. I certainly think it’s helped us.”

YSU’s scoring balance helped the Penguins on the offensive end. Nico Galette and EJ Farmer have consistently been the catalyst of the offense, as they lead the team averaging 13.8 and 13.6 points per game, respectively.

But behind them are a balanced group, each of whom are capable of getting hot on any given night. The Penguins have five different players each averaging between 6.8 to 9.3 points per game.

“I think it’s just the team that we have,” Faulkner said. “We have a lot of balance. We have different guys that can have a night. That can be EJ one night, Nico one night, Juwan (Maxey) one night, Jason (Nelson) one. It could be a bunch of guys up and down the lineup that can carry the load for us offensively. I think that makes us a dangerous team. I think that makes us hard to scout.”

TURNING UP THE ‘D’

In recent years under previous head coach Jerrod Calhoun, YSU flourished as an offensive juggernaut.

While Faulkner has kept in place a lot of the same free-flowing offensive principles that the Penguins had under Calhoun, he’s also increased the emphasis on the defensive end of the floor.

“Coach Faulkner, I feel like we know he’s a defensive type of guy,” Farmer said. “He loves defense. He could guard when he played. So I think that carried on for us pretty well, and we’ve been able to guard. He’s showing us the little things.”

The Penguins are third in the Horizon League defensively, giving up 69.2 points per game. But remove YSU’s two losses to Power conference opponents Ohio State and Syracuse, in which the Penguins gave up 81 and 104 points, respectively, and the Penguins are giving up just 65 points per game, which would be best in the conference and in the top-50 nationally.

“I think to be a good team you have to have balance on both sides of the ball,” Faulkner said. “I think we have a lot of good individual defenders and guys who are willing to guard, but we’re playing very connected on that end of the floor. Certainly as a coach, and just who I was as a player, that end of the floor is very important to me, and it’s certainly something that we put emphasis on in terms of trying to be a team that can rely on your defense to win games.”

A big part of the defense has been the presence of 7-foot-3 sophomore center Gabe Dynes as a last line of defense in the paint. Dynes is third in Division I in blocks per game with 3.23, but even on possessions when he doesn’t get his hand on the ball, he’s still able to affect opponents’ shots.

Faulkner said YSU’s defense this season has helped carry the team in games when the Penguins have struggled to make shots.

“I think our MO this year has to be defending and rebounding at a high level,” Faulkner said. “We’ve made a lot of progress on both sides of the ball over the last two, three weeks. But really excited about where we’re at defensively. I think we have a chance to continue to get better there, but we’re playing at a pretty high level on that end of the floor.”

YSU is off for the Christmas holiday this week, but the Penguins will return to action on Sunday when they host Detroit Mercy at 2 p.m. at the Beeghly Center.