By John Ostapowicz
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – After posting its first losing season in over seven years, the Youngstown State University men’s basketball team is rebuilding its program with only one returning player.
The team posted a 15-17 record in 2025-26, a sharp dropoff from its 21-13 mark the previous season.
Despite a losing record, Youngstown State had two key moments. The team defeated Grand Canyon University 90-81, which marked the first time YSU defeated a Mountain West Conference opponent in almost a decade. The Penguins also had the second-best defense in the Horizon League as the unit held teams to under 73 points a game.
The men’s basketball program has been built on success over recent years, with last season being the first time since 2018-19 the Penguins finished below .500.
Entering year three, Head Coach Ethan Faulkner and his staff had to recruit new players and find ways to improve an offense that was ranked eighth in the league.
The program will rely on its lone returner in sophomore Jaiden Haynes. Last season, he appeared in 21 games and started two contests in his freshman year. In total, Haynes recorded over 100 points, collected 31 rebounds and dished out 10 assists.
As he enters his second season, Faulkner said Haynes is the centerpiece of the team heading into the season. He’ll show the incoming players how the program operates and what the expectations are.
“We’ve got experience with molding new teams together. [Haynes], our lone returning player, is going to be a big piece of the puzzle for us and then him laying down standards and expectations for the new guys on what our program is about, what we want to be about [and] how we’re going to operate,” Faulkner said.
NEW TALENT
Faulkner is accustomed to recruiting and assembling a new team, as this is his eighth year overall with the Penguins. It’s become part of the landscape of NCAA college basketball with a lot of players electing to hit the transfer portal and play elsewhere.
The team pivoted from acquiring mostly transfer players to adding freshmen talent. With 13 new players on the roster, the five incoming freshmen is the most the program has seen since the 2020-21 season when there were seven freshmen. Faulkner was the assistant men’s basketball coach that year.
After six weeks of summer training, Faulkner said he’s seen improvement from everyone on the team. Two players in particular have stood out – Japhet Moupadele and Kelvin Amoako – even with the limited time they’ve been on campus.
“Those two guys over our six weeks in the summer probably made as big of improvements as anybody in our program,” Faulkner said, “particularly with their bodies and their strength and conditioning.”
Both Moupadele and Amoako will help fortify the team’s defense and create scoring opportunities in the post. They are also expected to assist with rebounding. The Penguins were sixth in defensive rebounding last season and almost last in offensive rebounding in the Horizon League.
“What we’ve seen over the last couple of years is we needed to make improvements – defensive rebounding. We needed to make improvements in terms of being able to guard with physicality in the post. Moupadele and Amoako both give us that,” Faulkner said.
Amoako, a 6-foot-11 center, transferred from Division II University of Indianapolis in 2025-26, where he averaged 10 points and 7.5 rebounds per game.
Moupadele enters his sophomore season with DI experience from San Jose State University. During the Mountain West Tournament in mid-March, Moupadele recorded five points and three rebounds in the Spartans’ win over Boise State University.
Another transfer that will help facilitate the offense is fifth-year senior Jeff Nwankwo. He joins the program from the University of Oklahoma in the Southeastern Conference.
Last season he appeared in 24 games for the Sooners and averaged 2.9 points and 2.3 rebounds per game. He scored in double-figures twice during his redshirt senior campaign, against Marquette University and Arizona State University.
DEPARTURES
Several players departed from Youngstown State with notable exits such as Imanuel Zorgvol, Tae Blackshear, Drew King and Rich Rolf.
Zorgvol, the team’s 7-foot center, headed to Hofstra University. For the Penguins, he helped with rim protection, averaging 1.1 blocks and 2.8 rebounds per game.
The team also lost depth coming off the bench with Blackshear, who transferred to Niagara University after putting up 6.8 points per game.
Drew King, who averaged 5.2 points with the team as well as 3.6 rebounds, is now a member of Northwest Nazarene University.
As a starter, Rolf averaged 6.3 ppg for YSU. He moved on to Miami University – a team that appeared in the NCAA Tournament Round of 32.
Faulkner said the importance of summer training and working with the team in the offseason lays the foundation and fundamentals of what the expectations are for the program.
“This summer was really important for them to get here, again understanding what our program is going to be about, how we’re going to work… focusing with those guys not just on getting better on the floor, but like the freshmen, improving their bodies and getting their bodies ready in terms of strength and conditioning for the demands of the physicality of the Division I game,” Faulkner said.
With the loss of Cris Carroll, the offense loses its leading scorer who averaged 17.4 points per game for the ’Guins last season. Faulkner said the program added players who can stretch the floor and put up efficient shots.
“Offensively, we’ll play faster this year. That’s something that we’ve built our team to do. Something that we’re emphasizing is playing with better pace, playing with better tempo – really trying to create those early advantages,” Faulkner said.
SHOT SELECTION
For the offense this year, Faulkner said it’s about shot selection.
For the 2025-26 season, the Penguins shot 46.2% from the field, 34.6% from three-point range and 73.9% from the free-throw line.
The gameplan for this year is to clean up the shot efficiency as well as playing unselfish basketball.
“We want 45% of our shots to come from three. We want 45% of our shots to come at the rim. We want only 10% of our shots to come in the mid-range,” Faulkner said. “We believe if we can eliminate mid-range shots, we’ll give ourselves a chance to be an efficient offense.”
Faulkner said he is excited to see how the team will develop throughout the season. This year it’s a fresh start for the Penguins.
“Every team’s journey is different and [I’m] just really excited to see the development of this team and how we gel together, how our chemistry develops [and] how our connections develop. Those things are going to be really important for us when we get into the most important time of the year, which is March,” Faulkner said.
Pictured at top: Sophomore Jaiden Haynes returns as the Penguins’ lone returning player and a key piece of the team’s rebuilding effort.
