Penn State Basketball: Hoops team easily handles Lafayette 70-57

Penn State Basketball improved to 6-1 on the season with a rather easy win on Friday night

Penn State Basketball downed Lafayette 70-57 on Friday night at the Bryce Jordan Center thanks to a full team effort.

While the final score showed that Penn State Basketball cruised in this game, it wasn’t all smooth sailing.

At 12:12 in the first half, Leo O’Boyle of the Lafayette Leopards had just hit a 3 pointer to increase their lead over the Penn State Nittany Lions 19-12. Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry had seen enough and called a timeout. Penn State had already given up 7 offensive rebounds and looked as though they had their Thanksgiving dinner right before tipoff.

That timeout ended up being the turning point of the game, as the Nittany Lions outscored the Leopards 54-21 in the next 25 minutes, cruising out to a comfortable 66-40 lead before Coach Shrewsberry started emptying the bench. The final score of 70-57 doesn’t nearly describe the total domination that the Lions showed throughout the majority of the game.

Jalen Pickett continued his brilliant 22-23 campaign with 18 points on 7-10 shooting. He also chipped in 6 rebounds, 8 assists and one steal. Seth Lundy added 15 points, with three of six beyond the arc. As a whole, the Nittany Lions entered the contest 11th in the nation in 3-point percentage at 42.4%. Sadly, that number will slightly decrease as they “only” hit 11-27, for a 40.7 %. So far this season, they have already broken the previous mark of 15 3’s in a game this year twice, setting the new record of 18 in the season opener with Winthrop and following it up the very next game with 16 against Loyola (MD).

Leo O’Boyle led all scorers with 19 points. However, he was the only Leopard in double digits, as the Nittany Lions defense proved quite stingy, allowing only 31 % from the field and 32.1 % from long distance. Conversely, Penn State shot 48.2% from the floor and 40.7 from 3-point range. The only area of concern from this game would have been the rebounding differential, as the Lafayette outrebounded Penn State 40-33 and 16-6 on the offensive boards.

This team seems destined to set all kinds of different NCAA records, as Demetrius Lilley made his collegiate debut and just one second into his career picked up not just a foul, but a flagrant one.

Penn State takes the court next Tuesday against Clemson University in the ACC-Big Ten challenge. The game is set for 7 p.m. at Littlejohn Coliseum and will be aired on ESPNU.