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Not enough juice LINEUP SHAKEUP CAN’T SAVE FLAMES January 26, 2015
Bobby Hain scored 21 points and Marcus Keene added 19 as host Youngstown State earned its first Horizon League win of the season with a 77-64 victory over the Flames at the Beeghly Center. The Penguins (10-13, 1-7) rallied from a 12-point, first-half deficit to wrest away the lead early in the second half and pull away from there. UIC coach Howard Moore put two of his captains on the bench in what could have appeared to be a desperate maneuver. Senior guard Marc Brown and junior forward Jake Wiegand were taken out of the starting lineup. Their replacements, Jason McClellan and Paris Burns, carried the Flames (5-16, 1-5) on offense. McClellan, a junior forward, scored a career-high 19 points and was a perfect 4-for-4 from 3-point range to lead UIC, which lost its fifth straight after beating YSU in the conference opener at the Pavilion on Jan. 2. Burns, a junior guard, added 16 points. Fifth-year senior Jay Harris contributed 13 points despite shooting 4-for-16 from the field for the Flames. Moore’s decision looked golden at the outset. Burns scored seven points in the early going and Harris nailed a jumper with 12:39 left for an 18-6 lead with 12:39 left in the first half. When Burns drilled a 3-pointer with 6:21 left in the half, UIC led 23-12. Things began to go downhill from there as the Penguins closed the first half on a 14-5 run to narrow the gap to 28-26 at the half. Hain converted a three-point play on the first possession of the second half as YSU gained their first lead of the game. The Penguins went on an 18-4 run after halftime with Keene capping the burst with a 3-pointer for a 44-32 lead with 14:42 remaining. McClellan hit all four of his 3-pointers in the second half, but didn’t get much help as the Flames couldn’t get the deficit to fewer than five points. D’Juan Miller’s jumper pulled UIC to within 50-45, but the Penguins put the game on ice with 16-5 run, capped by consecutive 3-pointers by Osandi Vaughn and Cameron Morse. FLAMES FLICKERS: The Penguins shot 68.2 percent in the second half after hitting just 35 percent in the first half. UIC shot 36.2 percent. … Wiegand went scoreless while missing his only two shots from the field in eight minutes. Brown also missed his only shots in eight minutes, but he did have a free throw. … Freshman center Tai Odiase is being brought back slowly as he continues to heal from a stress fracture in his right leg. He had two points in three minutes. … Saturday night’s win was YSU’s first since a 78-74 victory over Northern Kentucky on Dec. 31. |
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