Advertisement
basketball Edit

Penn State men's basketball blows 11-point lead in home loss to Michigan

With Michigan in town for the Bryce Jordan Center’s rendition of a White Out, Penn State gave its fans a good show for the first portion of the contest, but a brutal stretch before and after halftime spelled disaster for the blue and white.

The Nittany Lions let go of an 11-point lead to fall 58-57 at home against the Wolverines, falling to 9-11 over and 4-8 in the conference.

While the Wolverine lead was just four for much of the second half, Penn State’s offense went cold with no field goals from the 4:52 mark to the 11-second mark.

Seth Lundy had a chance to cut the lead to one with a wide open 3-pointer with 32-seconds left, but he couldn’t convert. Michigan went 6-for-6 from the free throw line in the last 21 seconds to put the game on ice.

Micah Shrewsberry opened his postgame press conference by congratulating Michigan on winning a “dogfight” and continued to say he didn’t feel he was good enough on the night and apologized to his team. He thought they followed his lead and played more “frazzled” than they needed to.

“I gotta be better for them. And I will be. I promise I will be for those guys because the way that they're fighting and what they're doing, they deserve that,” Shrewbserry said. “But I'm gonna fight for these dudes. I'm gonna fight them. Nobody else is gonna fight for my team. I'm gonna fight for them every single day.”

Not a Subscriber? Join us With Our FREE 30-Day Premium Trial

Advertisement

Through the first eight minutes, the Nittany Lions and Wolverines changed leads four times and tied twice. The 20-19 score in favor of the blue and white was also a breath of fresh air after Penn State’s last game at Wisconsin was 18-13 at halftime.

Penn State got hot after the numerous lead changes, riding six-straight scoring possessions from Sam Sessoms to grab an 11-point lead, its largest of the game. Sessoms had the right-handed runner working very well for him, also picking up an assist after an early pair of turnovers.

Michigan holds a major size advantage over Penn State, with Hunter Dickinson and Moussa Diabate standing at 7-foot and 6-foot-11, respectively, while John Harrar is Penn State’s tallest player at 6-foot-9.

Despite that, 54% of the Wolverine’s shots came from outside the arc in the early going, and the pairing didn’t have much of an impact. They flipped a switch near the four-minute mark, though.

Penn State’s early 69% shooting mark fell off the face of the earth. The Nittany Lions carried a nearly 10-minute scoreless streak between the first and second halves.

Michigan, on the other hand, took full advantage of the drought. The Wolverines erased the double-digit deficit with an 11-0 run over the last four minutes of the first half, adding four more in the second half before Myles Dread finally broke the run with a corner 3 at the 13:50 mark.

Dickinson shot up to 13 points, while Penn State’s leading scorer in Sessoms barely saw the court during the stretch.

Both teams struggled to get it going after the break, though. Penn State and Michigan were a combined 7-for-38 through the six-minute mark, and the Wolverines were nursing a slim lead throughout.

Things got a bit testy, too. Micah Shrewsberry and Juwan Howard had both been in the officials’ ears all night, and the BJC crowd let the zebras hear it as well.

It culminated with a questionable call on a Seth Lundy defensive rebound, putting Michigan in the bonus with 8.5 minutes remaining. At the time, the Wolverines were 11-for-14 from the line, while Penn State had yet to see the charity stripe.

Shrewsberry, who was likely on the verge of getting a technical for most of the night, joked that he may need someone to “smack him in the back of the head and tell [him] to shut up” when asked about potentially needing a “get-back” coach.

More seriously, he was unhappy with a number of the fouls called or not called, joking with Howard at times about it, but he doesn’t want his team to change their aggressive mentality even if the calls aren’t going their way.

He pointed to Sessoms’ drives to the rim, which were falling in the first half but not in the second half, and said they’re still good shots even without a call.

“It is what it is. We're driving, we're attacking the rim. If we weren't aggressive, and we didn't shoot free throws, then so be it,” Shrewsberry said. “But I thought we were attacking. We were an aggressive team. Usually that capitalizes for you, but it didn't, so you gotta move on.”

With 3:37 left in the game, Harrar drew a shooting foul to give Penn State its first trip to the line. Between the 8:20 mark when Michigan hit the bonus to Harrar’s free throws, there had been just six total points scored.

Harrar hit both to knot it at 48 before Dickinson hit a pair of his own to take it right back.

The Nittany Lions’ cold streak in the late stages and Lundy’s missed 3 were enough to end it, even with Sam Sessoms making three free throws in one possession.

Dread made a corner 3 at the buzzer to make it a one-point loss, but it did little more than cause a bad beat for any -2 Michigan bettors.

The ice-cold shooting since really the four-minute mark of the first half wasn’t anything outside of Penn State beating itself, according to Sam Sessoms and Jalen Pickett, but the Nittany Lion coaches and players did mention that Michigan played a bit more zone in the second half.

“People missed a ton of shots we usually make,” Sessoms said. “So I wouldn't really say it was much of them. Some days you have that type of night, and it was unfortunate that it was a couple of us.”

Penn State finished with a significant advantage in field goal percentage, albeit shooting 40% compared to Michigan’s 31%. However, the Wolverines’ 19-for-22 free throw shooting dominated Penn State’s 6-for-7

Dickinson was unsurprisingly the player of the night, pouring in 19 points and 15 rebounds, eight of which were on the offensive end. He also had four blocks.

Eli Brooks added to the cause with 16 points, fueled by his 4-for-4 free throw shooting in crunch time and 7-for-8 overall.

Pickett led Penn State with 14 points, and Sessoms added 13 of his own.

Penn State goes back on the road to face Minnesota this Saturday at 8:30 p.m.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Follow us on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Instagram

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Talk about it inside The Wrestling Room Board

Talk about it inside The Lions Den Message Board

Talk about it inside the Nittany Lounge free board

Advertisement