YOUNGSTOWN — Success has been a double-edged sword for the Youngstown State men’s basketball team in recent years.

The Penguins are a program on the rise, having won at least 20 games in each of the last three seasons. But like for most mid-major teams, that sustained success has continued to make non-conference scheduling more difficult year-in and year-out.

“The more success you have, the more challenging scheduling gets,” YSU head coach Ethan Faulkner said earlier this season. “All these different teams, what they’re trying to do when they’re scheduling games is build an NCAA tournament resume. The high-major teams, it’s about scheduling Quad 1 and Quad 2 games, or scheduling Quad 4 games against teams they feel they can beat by 15, 20, 30 points — it’s going to help their metrics as

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