Penn State Basketball falls to Miami in B1G-ACC Challenge
By Evan Smith
Penn State Basketball returned home to the Bryce Jordan Center, falling to the Miami Hurricanes Wednesday night
Penn State Basketball fell to Miami (Florida) 63 – 58 in familiar fashion, poor shooting from three and tons of turnovers.
The Nittany Lions moved to 4-3 on the year, failing to win their second straight win over a power five team after defeating Oregon State in the 3rd Place game of the Emerald Coast Classic.
Penn State Basketball came into the game tied for the highest winning percentage in conference history in this challenge (likely due to the fact they’ve never played Duke or UNC and mostly get assigned Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, etc.).
With the results earlier in the night, PSU could have clinched the Challenge for the Big Ten with a win.
The Lions went with what is seeming to be their normal starting line-up (Pickett, Sessoms, Lundy, Dread, and Harrar), the Lions started off a blistering 5-8 from the field, Miami matched shooting 4-7 (4-4 from three), as Miami led 12-11 just 4 minutes in. Some forced early shot clock threes from PSU led to 1-8 three-point shooting but PSU kept it to a 20-18 Hurricane lead as the pace slowed significantly. Two more sloppy turnovers forced a Shrewsberry timeout late in the half, but the Nittany Lions couldn’t overcome their abysmal assist to turnover ratio (2 to 10) as Miami led 29-23 going into the break.
Perhaps, fortunately, due to the quadruple overtime game between Nebraska and NC State, those waiting for the television broadcast were spared from watching the first half and even some of the second half.
Three Miami threes in the first four minutes coming out of the half grew the lead to 8 but Harrar and Sessoms quickly gave the Lions a 40-38 lead. Miami responded with an 11-0 thanks to more sloppy turnovers, taking a 51-48 lead with 7:22 remaining.
Their lead peaked at seven as Hurricane jumpers continued to fall but a Lundy three cut the Miami lead to four with two minutes to go. Cornwall made two clutch free throws to cut the lead to two but Miami drained a three after PSU gave up an offensive rebound (after 29 seconds of great Nittany Lion defense) to clinch the win for Miami as the gym emptied with 15 seconds to go.
Although HC Micah Shrewsberry announced Jevonnie Scott is now NCAA eligible, he did not see any playing time as he works his way back into playing condition. Daillon Johnson saw a little first halftime but Shrewsberry kept the same short seven-man rotation (starters plus Cornwall and White) for most of the game.
The last time Miami Head Coach Jim Larranaga appeared in the Bryce Jordan Center, Talor Battle hit a game-tying three at the buzzer (“We’re going to overtime in State College, PA”) as #2 seed PSU defeated #7 George Mason in the 2009 NIT first-round game.
Safe to say he enjoyed this trip quite a bit more.
Lions host Ohio State (coming off a win vs #1 Duke) this Sunday at 7:30 pm back in the Bryce Jordan Center.