YSU Men’s Basketball Seeks to Begin the Faulkner Era

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – This may be Ethan Faulkner’s first season as head coach, but he has been with Youngstown State since 2019 and now hopes to continue the program’s recent success during Monday’s season opener.

“I certainly think we have a group with a high ceiling and I need to continue to make progress like everyone else in the country at this point in the year,” Faulkner said. “Again, we need to get things in order on both sides of the ball, but personally, I’m obviously excited to coach my first game, but I’m even more excited to see our guys go out there and compete.”

Three returning players from last year’s team, starting with senior EJ Farmer, wanted to bring in a new crop of talent acclimating to the program early in the process.

“Even before the new guys came in, the guys that came back, we were basically talking about how we need to start a culture right now, from spring training to now,” Farmer said. “So by the time the new guys came in, we kind of figured it out and showed them everything we had going on here, and they understood pretty well.”

There are also three upcoming fifth-year transfers who should make an immediate impact: Nico Galette, Ty Harper and Siem Uyendaal.

“I told everyone that if you ask me, I don’t know if we have a production guy who can put up numbers like Dwayne Cohill or DJ Burns,” Faulkner said. “But I think we have a good balance, we have depth at every position. I think from one to ten we can play with a lot of different guys, we have some versatility.”

After the season opener, the Penguins traveled to six competitions at once before returning in late November. But right now, this team is ready to see how they stack up against other talent.

“We’ve been playing against each other since May, so we’re just ready to go out on Nov. 4 and play new teams,” Farmer said.

The YSU men’s basketball team will host Westminster on Monday, immediately after the YSU women’s team faces North Dakota starting at 5:30 p.m.

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