Penn State Basketball’s comeback bid falls short in loss to Ohio State

Penn State Basketball mounted a second-half comeback but came up short in an eight-point loss to Ohio State in the Big Ten opener for both teams Sunday night

Penn State Basketball fell to Ohio State 76- 64 in the B1G Conference opener for both teams.

The Nittany Lions are now 4-4 on the year, 0-1 in the conference, following Sunday night’s loss.

Penn State Basketball went another new starting lineup, putting Cornwall in with Sessoms, Pickett, Lundy and Harrar.   Lions were led in scoring by Pickett with 23 and Lundy added 13 points.

This was the homecoming for former Nittany Lion Jamari Wheeler, who transferred to Ohio State to use his extra year after the firing of Pat Chambers and the release of Jim Ferry.

Here was Wheeler’s reception during pre-game introductions:

Students were quick to boo him throughout sadly, clearly not understanding the disrespect Wheeler was shown last year. Painted chests spelling out T-R-A-I-T-O-R were incredibly misguided and in poor taste for a player who gave his all to the Nittany Lions for four years, completing the terms of his scholarship and graduating with his degree.

The Buckeyes got off to a 5-0 but the Lions responded with a 12-0 run with threes from Lundy and Pickett to force an early Buckeye timeout.

Penn State quickly fell into the iso ball offense and not taking care of the ball and frankly just giving the Buckeyes wide open threes and the lead vanished as the Buckeyes took a 19-15 lead.

The remainder of the half was more of the same. Lundy (11) and Pickett (10) kept it as close as possible but losing the rebound 17-11 hurt as Ohio State finished the half with two E.J. Liddell (their center) layups over Sam Sessoms (our very small point guard) and the Buckeyes led 41-30.

A second steal and finish by Wheeler pushed the Buckeye lead to 18 with 16:22, forcing another Shrewsberry timeout.  The boos started to wane from the students as Jamari continued to do, well basically whatever he wanted to do.  He finished with 9 points (1-6 from 3), five rebounds, nine assists, and three steals … a classic Jamari Wheeler line.

Penn State Basketball makes a game of it late, but comes up short vs. Ohio State

After six straight chances to cut into the lead, a Pickett floater cut the Buckeye lead to 12, the closest the game had been in a half Ohio State led by 18 multiple times gave Penn State some hope but a beautiful Jamari Wheeler skip pass led to a wide open Buckeye three and just like that the lead was back to fifteen with 7:52 to go.

Give the Lions credit, however, as some fiesty defense and consistently making free throws slowly whittled away the Ohio State lead all the way to seven as the BJC came alive.

A Buckeye three was sandwiched between a Cornwall jumper and two more Pickett free throws.  Penn State was 12-12 on the day and trailed by just 6 with 2:39 to go.

But, OSU answered with a three and the Lions gave up possession with another unforced turnover (their 14th of the game).  Two huge free throw misses by Harrar were followed by a Buckeye turnover and a Pickett and-1 cut the lead to 6 but Ohio State easily broke the oppress and got a wide open dunk to push the lead back 8 with 40 seconds remaining.

The Nittany Lions host Wager at 7:00 pm before heading to East Lansing on Saturday at 2:00 pm to finish the December conference slate.