Penn State's big second half leads to 98-70 win against Bucknell
Jamari Wheeler felt no warmth following the Nittany Lions’ 98-70 win against Bucknell Tuesday evening at the Bryce Jordan Center.
In a literal sense, the Nittany Lions’ junior was wrapped in ice thanks to a grind-it-out effort that saw him finish with 10 points, four assists, four rebounds and a pair of steals in 24 minutes of action. Comfortably ahead late in the game, in fact, the point guard limped off the floor at the 6:26 mark and wouldn’t return to the game, leaving Penn State head coach Patrick Chambers to credit Wheeler for his tenacity.
“I want to give Jamari Wheeler a shout out,” Chambers said. “He was so banged up. Hurt his elbow, he was laying on the couch at halftime, I was asking, ‘Can you go?’ He said, ‘Coach, I'm definitely going. I gotta go.’ So he's got ice everywhere. He's got ice on his knees, on his hips.
“I just looked at him and said, ‘Hey man, winning hurts. Winning hurts.’"
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The Nittany Lions (4-0) did so for the fourth time on the young 2019-20 season with a dominant second half against the Bison (2-3).
Back and forth in the first half with senior forward Lamar Stevens held to just six points, the Nittany Lions led by as many as 11 points at the midway point. Unable to match Bucknell’s pace on the defensive end of the floor, the Nittany Lions quickly saw their lead evaporate to just a point on a late Bruce Moore 3-pointer for the Bison, getting a bucket back on their final possession to take a 45-42 advantage into the locker room.
“I felt like we were on our heels a little bit and they definitely had the momentum,” Chambers said. “Fortunately we have some firepower that we can score the basketball this year. And then we had to make some adjustments at halftime, maybe do a little bit more switching than I would like, because I really want to stick with our foundation of our man-to-man. but we did some things to really disrupt and I thought we just did a better job. Again, four days off and it looked like we were a little bit rusty.”
Led by Stevens out of the gates in the second half, the Nittany Lions shook off that rust quickly.
Within 89 seconds of the second-half start, Stevens single-handedly produced an 8-0 run that the Nittany Lions wouldn’t look back from. And though the Bison managed to trade a few more punches, Penn State’s double-digit lead returned thanks to a Myles Dread 3-pointer and a pair of Stevens free throws at the 15:27 mark.
Retaking the momentum, the Nittany Lions surged ahead on the back of a 17-2 run, capped by an Izaiah Brockington layup to go ahead 71-51 before the second media timeout.
“I thought our defense in the second half was unbelievable,” Chambers said. “We did a really good job in stances, really communicating, limiting them to one shot. I mean they got a few, but they were dead ball. And then I thought Lamar Stevens showed why he's a candidate for Player of the Year and All-American. He really stepped up with his energy, his effort, his enthusiasm, it really dominoed to the rest of the team.”
Finishing out the contest with 27 points on 11-of-16 shooting from the floor, opting not to take a 3-pointer for the first time this season, Stevens built on his stat line with a 5-of-8 mark from the free-throw line to go along with eight rebounds, three steals, and a block.
Bolstered by an effort that also saw double-figures scoring for big man Mike Watkins (18 points), Dread (12), and Wheeler (10), the Nittany Lions again demonstrated a diversity of scoring options and defensive congruence to finish out the win with their largest lead of the night.
“They're a really good team. I just have so much confidence in my team and my guys,” Stevens said of his confidence at halftime. “So the message in the locker room is just ultimately, ‘How bad do you want it?’ I think as a senior, as the leader of this team, it's my job to find a way to impact the game, whether to score or defense or whatever it was. And they found me the opportunities, the ways to score during that run. I just took advantage of the opportunities I had.”
Scheduled as part of a two-game set at the BJC for the NIT Season Tip-Off before heading to Brooklyn, N.Y. for another two games against Ole Miss and the winner/loser of Oklahoma State/Syracuse, the Nittany Lions will face Yale Saturday at 4 p.m.
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