High effort leads PSU Hoops to big win in battle of rebuilding programs
Penn State took the court on Thursday against the same Minnesota team it played just five days earlier in Minneapolis, when the Golden Gophers pulled out a 76-70 victory.
Neither one seemed to actually be the same team that played in their last meeting, though.
The Nittany Lions got control of the flow early on and never looked back. Jalen Pickett scored 20 points with 15 in the second half, and Penn State’s defensive dominance led it to a second-straight win, 67-46.
Minnesota couldn’t even muster up 20 points in total through the first half of action.
Both Penn State’s Micah Shrewsberry and Golden Gophers coach Ben Johnson noted that there isn’t much room to change a scheme with just five days between matchups, but it was clear which team wanted the win more within the first few minutes of the rematch.
“They pressed up. They forced the issue. They dictated. And for whatever reason, I think two minutes into the game, we were shot and couldn't get anything going,” Johnson said on Thursday. “They took it to us from the start, and we never punched back.”
Shrewsberry, who spent years as an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics, likened the short stretch between the Minnesota games to an NBA playoff series. You don’t have much time to tweak and play with a game plan.
The Nittany Lions’ first-year coach was frank with his team in his pregame speech.
“I told our guys our game plan was good. Now we need to do it harder, and we need to do it better,” Shrewsberry said. “Our game plan didn't change against these guys from the first time. We did it better. We did it harder. Our execution was a little bit better.”
Shrewsberry acknowledged there were other factors that went into the win over the Golden Gophers.
Penn State had momentum coming off an upset of No. 19 Michigan State on Tuesday, and Minnesota was closing a two-game road trip that started with a 25-point loss to No. 18 Ohio State.
In the Gophers last win over Penn State, big man Eric Curry, a typical role player who averages 8.2 points per game, went ballistic for 22 points on 10-for-19 shooting — including his first made 3-pointer of the year.
On Thursday, Curry scored just one point on 0-for-6 shooting. He also turned it over three times.
Minnesota’s leading scorer, Jamison Battle, was the only one to find much production on Thursday. He scored 16 points, but his total was ballooned by three makes from deep with the game already well out of hand.
Battle was held in check in Minnesota’s win with just eight points, largely thanks to drawing a matchup with Seth Lundy, who has been an elite defender for Penn State all year.
Lundy played a full 40 minutes on Tuesday against Michigan State, though. When the Nittany Lions took control of the game on Thursday, Shrewsberry made it a point to try and get some of his veterans more rest throughout the afternoon.
Subsequently, Battle fueled a quick 6-0 run for Minnesota in the first half. He then flourished off the pick and roll, forcing Lundy to switch off to another player.
Shrewsberry opted to put a larger group of solid defenders on the floor after Battle heated up. Jalen Pickett and Myles Dread each helped keep Battle quiet for the rest of the afternoon while Shrewsberry tried to give Lundy a breather here and there.
Minnesota’s second leading scorer, Payton Willis, exploded for 18 points and 10 assists in the first matchup. On Thursday, he scored just five points.
The same energetic and physical mentality Johnson noticed his team was lacking helped Penn State’s defense stay stout, especially in controlling Battle.
“We definitely had to pick it up, me and Myles, because Seth wasn't in as long,” Pickett said. “We knew we were just gonna throw a lot of bodies at [Battle] and just try and wear him and Payton Willis down as much as possible.”
Shrewsberry’s team has had a relatively disappointing season for his first campaign, but the Nittany Lions have been in a number of games down to the wire, they just haven’t won them. They pulled out one of those wins finally against Michigan State and followed it up with a complete performance against the Golden Gophers.
On the other side, Johnson is also in his first go around with Minnesota. His team has experienced plenty of similarities to Shrewsberry’s, especially in regard to roster overhaul, but Thursday’s effort wasn’t what Johnson wants to see in a rebuilding phase.
“I think our team has to mentally become so much tougher,” Johnson said. “When you're building this, you don't necessarily care about score. Everybody wants to win, don't get me wrong… but the bigger picture is the product that you put out there, what that looks like and how you play on both sides of the ball.
“If you struggle to do that, then the other stuff doesn't matter.”
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