Fall semester final exams might have been a couple of weeks ago, but the young Penn State women’s basketball team still is learning.
Mostly, about itself.
What could have been a nightmarish lesson in the Big Ten opener turned into a study in resilience as the Lady Lions, who trailed by more than 30 at halftime, battled back before eventually falling, 81-74, to conference power Minnesota on Saturday afternoon at the Bryce Jordan Center.
“We can play with anybody, and we are a good team. We are a very good team when we do what Coach asks us to do,” junior guard Kamaria McDaniel said. “When we started playing harder, we saw a couple of shots go down, and it just propelled us, but, unfortunately, we dug ourselves a very big hole.”
The second-leading scorer in the conference coming in, McDaniel scored 25 of her game-high 31 points in the second half. Senior guard Siyeh Frazier chipped in with 21 points, nine rebounds and three assists, while freshman point guard Makenna Marisa netted 12 points to go with three steals before fouling out.
The Lady Lions slipped to 6-6.
Sara Scalia topped Minnesota, now 11-1, with a 22 points; she made two of the Gophers’ three 3-pointers in the middle of the fourth quarter that helped stunt Penn State’s rally. Preseason all-conference pick Destiny Pitts wound up with 21 points.
With five of the 11 players on the roster getting their first taste of Big Ten play, one might have expected some extremes, but these extremes would be hard to fathom. Penn State trailed by 35 in the second quarter and 32 at halftime. The Lady Lions were just 2-for-15 from 3-point range, and they struggled just as mightily from close in, missing 25 layups — including 10 in a row at one point.
However, Penn State outscored one of the Big Ten’s preseason favorites, a team that returned three starters from a squad that won 21 games a season ago and is ranked just outside the top 25, 53-27 over the last two quarters.
“Obviously, a tale of two different teams from the first half to the second half. I’ll take that second-half team any day into battle,” Lady Lion coach Carolyn Kieger said. “I’m very proud of our effort, our adjustments, our composure.
“First half, obviously, we’ve got a lot to fix, but I definitely saw some growth there in the second half.”
When asked if she would be more focused on stressing the negatives or building on the positives coming out of Saturday’s loss, she said neither. The growth is the main thing.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but some of the soundest cornerstones upon which this program is constructed might have been laid in this contest.
“We talked in the locker room, ‘What did we learn about ourselves?,’” Kieger said. “First and foremost, I think when we play with effort, when we play with energy, we can play with anyone. When we’re emotional, and we get upset at any little mistake, and we focus on the past, we get average very quick.”
Penn State was very consistent in the second half. The Lady Lions never had bigger than a 9-0 run, but methodically chipped away at the Gophers’ lead.
The Lady Lions forced 10 turnovers in the second half, twice as many as in the first and coming up with five of their seven steals. They committed just two turnovers after the intermission after making nine in the first half.
McDaniel was consistently able to beat her defender one-on-one and get both feet into the paint for good scoring opportunities. Frazier played scrappy and steady and got to the line five times. Lauren Ebo pulled down seven of her game-high 10 rebounds.
“We had a really good talk at halftime, and we kind of regrouped,” McDaniel said. “I don’t know exactly what it was, but we kind of clicked. It was a different kind of energy out there. I think confidence was the biggest thing; you play with confidence, you have better results.”
Minnesota surged to a 54-21 leads at halftime. The Gophers shot 63.6 percent from the field through two quarters, making 7 of 10 3-pointers, while Penn State was just 8-for-28 from the field. Scalia and Pitts outscored the Lady Lions by themselves, combining for 29.
Penn State quickly fell behind 12-2, forcing Kieger to call timeout just 3:42 into the contest. The Lady Lions scored on just one of their first seven possessions, turning it over three times.
The difference ballooned to 18 when Jasmine Brunson got loose for a long lead pass for a basket just before the end of the first quarter.
The Lady Lions were noticeably struggling to create any kind of space offensively, either with the ball or moving without it, and it appeared that their poise suffered when they got down so big so fast.
“Our guards had a tendency to overdribble,” Kieger said. “Once we fixed that, we played very soundly that second half, and our offense flowed.”
