Penn State Basketball Gets Creamed in Indiana
By Evan Smith
Penn State Basketball was no match for the Indiana Hoosiers, as the Nittany Lions fell in blowout fashion Wednesday night.
Penn State Basketball fell in Bloomington to the Indiana Hoosiers 74-57.
The Nittany Lions failed in trying to earn the season sweep of the Hoosiers of Indiana, unable to replicate the home win over Indiana three weeks ago.
Penn State Basketball ran out the same starting lineup for the second consecutive game, with Jalen Pickett (h/t to Dick Jeradi for pointing out of a possible 320 Big Ten minutes this season, Pickett has played 298!), Seth Lundy, John Harrar, Greg Lee, and Jaheam Cornwall.
Even Steve Jones (PSU play x play announcer) seemed surprised that Cornwall was included in the starting lineup again…his last made three-pointer was over a month ago.
Penn State Basketball did an amazing job neutralizing all-conference performer, Trayce Jackson-Davis, in their victory but Davis made his impact known right away, scoring the first basket and blocking a PSU shot on the other end, forcing Penn State to an all-too-familier shot clock violation.
An Indiana three, another PSU turnover and an Indiana three (later turned to a two) put PSU behind the 8-ball early (and yet another instance where for some reason Shrewsberry refused to call time-out to stem the Hoosier tide). Instead, another PSU turnover gave the ball back to IU. In their first five possessions, the Nittany Lions didn’t get one single shot to the rim. Stop me if you’ve heard this before …
Another Nittany Lion turnover gave IU an easy 12-0 lead and still no timeout from Micah Shewsberry and even after an incredibly rare fast-break layup off a IU turnover, the Hoosiers hit a 3 to lead 15-2 at the 14:34 mark.
To recap, in the first ‘media timeout’ portion of the game, Penn State was 1-8 with three turnovers, three shots blocked, and committed two fouls.
Jeradi (PSU Hoops color announcer) stated “I’m not sure which is worse, the offense or the defense,” and no one watching could say he was wrong. The clearly disjointed timeout was begging for a timeout yet one was not called, an odd, familiar refrain we’ve seen over and over this year.
What would finally force him to call timeout? Lundy getting stripped, Jalanni White stepping on the inbounds line while throwing a pass and Greg Lee simply missing a rebound, allowing Jackson-Davis an easy lay-up to make the score Indiana 29 – Penn State 8 with 8:26 to go. Nothing like answering a 12-0 Hoosier start to the game by allowing a 17-8 run…
Nothing changed going into the half as Indiana opened up a 31 point lead and went into the tunnel with a 46-17 lead. A few fun halftime stats:
5 made field goals
8 of their 30 field goal attempts were blocked
1-8 on layups
The announcers even made it clear that it’s been a long time since the team performed this poorly, evening mentioning that under Chambers and Ferry the team never looked like this.
This was never a game as Penn State Basketball played better in the second half but never cut the lead under 20. This was as poor an effort from the Nittany Lions since the loss to UMass. Fans must now face the realization that maybe that 3-2 start in the conference may not have been real as offensive struggles continue to plague Penn State.
The Lions have a few days off before Iowa comes back for a return game on Monday night at 6:30 pm on the Big Ten Network.