Penn State Basketball rebounds with win over Wagner

Penn State Basketball took advantage of a get-right game Wednesday night against Wagner, coming out with a 20-point win at the Bryce Jordan Center

Penn State Basketball avoided their first three-game losing streak of the season by defeating the Wagner Seahawks 74-54.

After losses to Miami FL and Ohio State (aka Jamari Wheeler Revenge Game), Penn State bounced back over the Northeastern Conference’s Wagner University.  The Lions stay above .500 with the win, moving to 5-4 on the year in front of by far their most sparse crowd of the year.

The Nittany Lions started Seth Lundy, John Harrar, Myles Dread, Jalen Pickett and Jaheam Cornwall for the second straight game.  Penn State was led in points by Pickett and Sessoms with 16 points each.  Greg Lee, the Western Michigan transfer, participated in shoot-around and warm-ups but was not expected to play.

Both teams started slowly but back-to-back threes from Sessoms (his second of the game coming off the bench and Lundy gave the Lions an early 14-10 lead.  After getting into the bonus with 8:38 to go,  (and only being called for two fouls themselves), the Lions used another end of shot click three to build a (to that point) game-high seven-point lead, 21-14.

As usual, turnovers (nine in the first half) plagued Penn State, but ice-cold Wagner three-point shooting (2/8, 25%) gave the Lions a 32-27 halftime lead.

A White alley-oop from Sessoms opened up a 10 point Nittany Lion three with 13:45 to go, despite Lundy missing time with a gash to his face that required medical attention.

A Lundy offensive rebound and three ballooned the lead to 14 and the Lions rolled from there with the lead peaking at 23.

Despite another night with seemingly no ability to take care of the ball (16 turnovers), the Lions coasted in the second half behind strong shooting from the field (48%), the stripe (76.2%), and from three (35.7%) compared to Wagner’s 42.9%, 66.7%, and 14.3%. Odd that despite being up 20 late in the game starters continued to play, which hopefully won’t come back to haunt us on Saturday.  Both Lundy and Dread (shoulder) received treatment in the second half.

Speaking of Saturday, Penn State Basketball heads to East Lansing to take on No. 19 Michigan State on Saturday at 2:00 pm on the Big Ten Network, looking to pick up their first conference win.