Youngstown, Ohio
🏀 Youngstown State Penguins

A fairly non-descript college basketball venue, Beeghly Center opened in 1972 and holds just shy of 5,000 fans. For more than a half century, it’s been the modest home of the Youngstown State Penguins. While it is a multipurpose facility that hosts volleyball and a variety of watersports, the primary tenants of the building are the school’s basketball programs.

Unique amongst its collegiate peers, the Penguins name allegedly came to be during the winter of 1933 when, during an away contest at West Liberty State, the moniker arose out of the crowd. It was well received and adopted by all of the YSU programs, and the fun nickname remains the only one of its kind at the Division I level.

The large lobby area is a showcase of Youngstown State athletic history, extending beyond just the basketball programs. Display cases are stocked full of jerseys, trophies and other memorabilia, while an array of photos lines the wall.

Thanks to many charitable contributions by YSU alum, progressive upgrades have been made to the facility over the last decade. The funding provided by the Tom Zidian family, notably, has been so critical to the venue’s long-term success that it was renamed Zidian Family Arena at Beeghly Center in 2024.

There are only about three dozen teams who have never made it to the Division I men’s basketball tournament, and the Penguins are sadly one of them. Despite joining the upper ranks in 1981, the program didn’t make their first postseason appearance until being invited to the CIT in 2013. Since then, they’ve claimed just one regular season title, a victory which led them to the 2023 NIT. Over a century of play, the Penguins are still waddling their way towards their forty minutes of fame.