DES MOINES, Iowa — Well before Penn State took the court here on Thursday night, Kansas assistant coach Jeremy Case, a national title winner as both a player and assistant with the Jayhawks, pointed at the large bracket hanging from the media area wall and placed his finger on the name Penn State.
“They’re good, man,” he said to two fellow assistants as they mulled over the road ahead before leaving the arena.
And boy were the Nittany Lions good on Thursday night, roaring past No. 7 seed Texas A&M with a commanding 76-59 victory to advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2001. It was the largest margin of victory ever for a Penn State team in NCAA Tournament play.
If the tournament is intended to crown a national champion while showcasing teams at the same time, Penn State certainly took that to heart, playing if not their most complete game then certainly one of their most dominant of the year. The Nittany Lions leaned on physical defense, otherworldly shot-making by Andrew Funk and the supreme confidence of guard Jalen Pickett who once again flirted with a triple-double, scoring 19 points while pulling down seven rebounds and dishing out eight assists. It was everything Penn State had been in 2022-23 to near perfection. If you wanted to know what this team was all about, you need not look further than Thursday night.
In the early stages, Texas A&M took a 9-5 lead as the Aggies leaned on some opening momentum, but from that point on and effectively for the rest of the entire game, Penn State dominated on both ends of the floor. All told, the Nittany Lions rattled off a 33-13 run over the final 16:01 of the first half, led by 15-points from Funk in the kind of three-point shooting performances that become the thing of NCAA Tournament lore.
“Yeah, he’s OK, he’s an OK shooter,” Pickett said after the game with a smile. “He’s all right.”
By the half, Penn State was ahead 38-22, having played about as well as anyone could have reasonably expected and without ever really letting the Aggies even sniff the possibility of erasing such a solid half of play. Against a team that many believed to be better than its seed and one that many also believed to be more athletic than Penn State, the Nittany Lions were assertive on defense, calculated on offense and never looked back after the obligatory nerves that come with any NCAA Tournament game. It was as clinical as it gets.
Of course, as Andrew Funk scored 27-points on 8-for-10 shooting from beyond the arc, there was little more that needed to be said. Penn State opened the second half with solid offensive work, and by the midway point of the second half had extended its lead by four points, answering each basket the Aggies scored with one of its own. By that point Texas A&M was required to resort to three-point shooting — its weakness — and failed to make any headway in the final 10 minutes of regulation.
“It kinda gets to a point, especially with the offense that we play, I know I’m going to get a lot of shots from three,” Funk added. “And when those first two go in, you start hunting them a little bit and you just get into a rhythm, especially in a game like that where our offense is flowing the way it is. The rim opens up a lot and you get a lot of confidence flowing. Feels good.”
It was bizarre, in a way, that Penn State came to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 12 years and completely evaporated all of the drama out of the building. Aside from a few nervous opening minutes, the Nittany Lions were a celebration of all the things they have been this year when at their best.
There’s something fitting about it too. Half the field will lose in the opening round, that’s how the cookie crumbles, but Penn State showed up and played one of its best games of the year and will advance as a program for the first time in 22 years. The Nittany Lions will always have that. Nobody can take that from them. A Saturday night meeting against the No. 2 seeded Texas Longhorns (7:45 p.m. on CBS) could prove to be the end of the ride, or it could prove to be a trip to the Sweet 16. However it all pans out, senior guard Myles Dread, who has been at Penn State for the better part of forever, isn’t satisfied with just feeling happy for one night.
“We’re here to win some games,” Dread said.
