PSU Hoops late upset bid falls short on the road against No. 11 Wisconsin
It’s been 27 years since Penn State last won a game in Madison, Wisconsin, and the streak is still counting.
The Nittany Lions came close but couldn’t complete the upset of No. 11 Wisconsin, falling 51-49 at the Kohl Center.
Cold would be an understatement to describe the first half for both teams, as halftime saw an 18-13 lead for the Badgers.
Penn State hits just one shot of its first 20, a 3-pointer from Seth Lundy. Micah Shrewsberry’s team went to the break shooting just 16.7% overall from the floor.
Wisconsin’s opening period didn’t go much better, as the Badgers shot just 25.8%. Their two leading scorers, Johnny Davis and Brad Davison, were held without a point through the first 20 minutes of play.
Both offenses opened up more at the start of the second half.
Dallion Johnson, who notched his second straight and second career start on the night, hit back-to-back threes to draw his team within two early in the half.
Both teams traded buckets for a while before Greg Lee and Sam Sessoms willed Penn State to its first lead since the 17:26 mark of the first half.
Lee drilled two 3-pointers to bookend a stretch that saw Sessoms score on three straight possessions, twice from deep and once in the paint.
Wisconsin answered right back, however, with a 13-0 run that stretched four minutes down to the 3:17 mark. Davison scored twice in the run, while Steven Crowl drilled a pair of shots from beyond the arc to fuel his team-high 13 points.
Once again, Penn State answered with a late run of its own, shaving the 49-40 lead to a tie game over the last few minutes of the game. Myles Dread scored on two straight possessions to knot it at 49.
The Badgers’ Tyler Wahl drove to the rim and made a contested layup to give his team a two-point cushion with 30 seconds left.
Penn State had the final shot and after a pair of Wisconsin fouls and a Shrewsberry timeout, Dread couldn’t hit a long and contested 3-pointer to win it as the clock expired.
After the abysmal first half, both teams hovered around 50% from the floor in the second half. Penn State shot 48.1%, while Wisconsin converted at a 52% rate.
Sessoms had a game-high 14 points off the bench for Penn State on 5-for-9 shooting. Lee was second on the team with eight while adding nine rebounds.
Crowl led the way for Wisconsin, but Tyler Wahl and Chucky Hepburn both found double figures, adding 12 and 10 points, respectively.
The Nittany Lions kept Davis and Davison down for the majority of the night, though, holding the former to just four points. The showing was the Badger star’s first single-digit outing of the season after averaging 21.4 points per game coming into the contest.
Penn State’s John Harrar was absent for much of the second half, playing only 20 minutes in the game, and was held to just two points. He added nine rebounds.
The Nittany Lions fell to 9-10 overall and 4-7 in the conference. They’ll head back home and host Michigan at the Bryce Jordan Center on Tuesday at 9 p.m.
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