Penn State Basketball agonizingly falls to Indiana … and the refs

Penn State Basketball had to battle opposing players on the floor in Wednesday night’s loss to Indiana

Thanks to a late whistle against the Nittany Lions (shocking) and a swallowed whistle for the Hoosiers (shocking), Penn State Basketball fell 87-85 in overtime against Indiana in Assembly Hall.

As usual, Penn State Basketball gave up about a million points in the paint.

This is far from a great Hoosier team in Archie Miller’s fourth season at the helm of this storied program.  The Lions looked like a team that played just twice in 17 days (why didn’t Sandy Barbour reschedule Drexel or add ANYONE else in the last two weekends). Wednesday’s game felt very familiar to Penn State’s loss at Michigan:  too many fouls (boy was it nice to not hear Hoosier fans beg for every call), too little defense in the paint, and too many stagnant offensive stretches.

This game was tied 53-53 after a Lundy layup with 12:43 to go.

But, Indiana promptly went on a 12-1 run to take an 11 point lead. After the Hoosier hit a three to go up eight, Penn State head coach Jim Ferry opted not to call timeout, despite having three timeouts in hand.  Missed layups by Brockington and Wheeler led to a Hoosier run out.  More on Coach Jim Ferry in a bit…

Unlike Michigan, Penn State actually got over the hump and had a one point lead late.

Dread was then called for a very questionable foul and Jackson-Davis made the first free throw.  He missed the second and a helter-skelter Penn State possession since they didn’t have a timeout left (more on that below) led to a forced Sessoms jumper.  The IU defender landed on Sessoms but no whistle this time of course and we headed to overtime.

Overtime started with a Wheeler layup off a jumpball but IU scored the next time down.  IU got the benefit of another call with 3:00 left as the ball clearly went off the Hoosier’s leg, but was given back to IU.  In the rarest of Penn State Basketball outcomes, IU actually missed the three after getting the call.

Jackson-Davis got a soft and-1 to put the Hoosiers up 2 points with a minute to go.  Another poor offensive set was bailed out with Myreon getting to the line on a tough drive to the paint and making two free throws.  Penn State actually played great defense but Hoosier guard Rob Phinisse hit a very difficult turn-around fade-away jumper to put the Hoosiers up two with 12 seconds left.  Sessoms drove hard to the hole but the whistles stayed silent again.  A desperate Brockington fadeaway off the floor board came up short.

Note: Color commentator Robbie Hummel commented that Penn State was getting the short end of the stick on the calls in overtime.

Even the first line of the post-game show said Penn State has some serious questions about calls late.

To be clear, the refs aren’t the reason Penn State lost this game.

But, in the last two plays of regulation, both close calls went against Penn State.  An obvious out of bounds in OT went to Indiana. For a team trying to get over the hump, every extra hurdle just makes it that much harder. Great to see some recognition of those horrendous calls but doesn’t change the result that Penn State falls to 0-3 in conference.