RMU Basketball is on a three-game win streak in Horizon League play after a big two-point road win at Milwaukee. The Colonials look to complete its own road sweep on Wednesday, taking on Youngstown State (12-8, 7-3). They’re one of the top teams in the league, coming off a four-point road win at Green Bay.
These two teams met earlier, with the Penguins winning 72-58 at RMU. The Colonials are looking to get some revenge and avoid the season sweep to its regional foe. Here are some keys to things going differently this around for RMU.
1. Status of EJ Farmer for Youngstown
One player who has been out for the past couple of games for Youngstown State with an injury is EJ Farmer, who leads the team with 14.4 ppg. He scored 10 points in the first game against RMU and had three steals. If he’s not able to go, Jason Nelson will continue getting extended minutes, along with Juwan Maxey, who had a game-high 16 points in the win. Still, if he cannot go, that’s certainly a boost for the Colonials.
2. Better three-point shooting
One massive issue that occurred for RMU was the shooting woes, going 4/22 from three-point range in the game. The Colonials aren’t a good shooting team overall but have been better in the past month, including on the road. But it’s going to be a challenging task against Youngstown, who ranks in the top 10 nationally at threes allowed, both in makes and in attempts. The Colonials don’t need to go 10/20 to win, but they have to limit how many misses they take from deep.
3. Dealing with Gabe Dynes inside
However, even going inside was an issue for RMU, as 7’3 center Dynes had seven points, seven rebounds, and five blocks in 31 minutes off the bench. The Colonials didn’t really know what to do with them, as Alvaro Folguerias and Amarion Dickerson tried to stretch them out but combined to go 0-7 from deep.
Now that they’ve played Dynes once look for the Colonials to try and hatch a plan to get around him. If that ultimately is “shoot more 3s”, then their odds of winning may simply come down to how well they shoot the ball on the road.