Penn State dropped to 3-5 in Big Ten play and 9-10 overall on Saturday afternoon with a 79-67 loss to Ohio State in Columbus as the Nittany Lions couldn’t finish off a second-half comeback push. Penn State fell behind early and never could get back into the mix of things thanks in large part to a cold shooting first half and Ohio State’s persistence in the paint all game long. Puff Johnson and Kanye Clary led the way each with 13 points while Ace Baldwin and Nick Kern added 10 and 12 points respectively. Penn State will take six days off before a weekend meeting at the Bryce Jordan Center against Minnesota. Here are five takeaways from Saturday’s game.
Cold Start: Penn State fell behind early after missing its first 11 shots while Ohio State opened the game going 7-for-10 from the field en route to a 33-19 halftime margin. Penn State wouldn’t make its first shot from the field until there was 12:57 left in the half and the Buckeyes were already up 16-3. Penn State would only make six shots the rest of the half with missed shot streaks of four and five shots along the way. Penn State was lucky to not be down by more, but can thank Ohio State for going 0-for-8 from beyond the arc in the opening 20 minutes of play. More on that later.
Hot Finish: The Nittany Lions tried to make it two comeback victories over Ohio State this season with a eyebrow raising 20-6 run to make it a nine point game with 2:17 to go. It wasn’t enough time to complete the comeback but Penn State continues to show – in spite of some seriously cold shooting – an ability to mark unexpected runs. This particular stretch lasted nearly six minutes as Ohio State made just three shots from the field in the final 8:39 of regulation. Penn State will be happy with shooting 50% from the field and 54% from beyond the arc in the second half but will lament porous defense and cold shooting that helped put them in that hole early on.
Inside Work: Ohio State won despite getting outshot 3 to 11 from beyond the arc and that pretty much entirely comes back to 40 points scored in the paint and 22 more scored from the free throw line. Penn State did – just okay – in the rebounding department going -7 on the glass and actually won the offensive board battle with 11, but the interior defense continues to lack. There’s only so much the Nittany Lions can do about this fact, but when a team can build a 23 point lead in a game while basically not making any threes, that’s not a great sign. As an aside, Penn State only shot five free throws all game.
Ball Security: Penn State entered Saturday one of the better teams in the nation when it comes to forcing turnovers but Ohio State coughed it up just six times all game. In general this was a good game for ball security on both fronts – Penn State had just eight turnovers – but for a team that needs to generate more possessions and more stops, it’s not a good sign when the Nittany Lions aren’t forcing turnovers. Ohio State was also credited with zero fast break points, so it’s not as though the Buckeyes were pushing the tempo, a great way to cough up the ball.
Full 40: Penn State finished with four scorers in double figures, made 11 shots from beyond the arc, did okay on the glass and put together an impressive second half run. All of these things are good, but none of them are good enough when a team is down 23. Penn State isn’t going to win many games when its leading scorer has 13 points (Kanye Clary and Puff Johnson) and it isn’t going to win many games when it shoots 37% from the field either. That being said there were good things in this performance, but like all teams, the challenge is doing the good things for 40 minutes. Penn State did them for about half of that.
