Penn State Men’s Basketball: Nittany Lions Can’t Find Three in 65-45 Loss at Rutgers

The Nittany Lions couldn’t hit their shots from deep on Tuesday night, falling 65-45 at Rutgers, dropping to 4-5 in conference play and 13-7 overall.

Penn State men’s basketball has always been – this season – a team that will ultimately live and die by the three. All told 47% of the Nittany Lions’ shots have come from beyond the arc this year, a mark that is unusually high by the program’s own standards and generally representative of a team leaning into what it is good at. Heading into Tuesday’s game Penn State was ranked 10th in the nation in three-point percentage while having attempted the second-most threes of the teams in that Top 10. Despite the performance on Tuesday, Penn State is an above-average team at shooting the three.

There have been moments when this has been obvious. The Nittany Lions are defensively sound to the best of their ability despite a lack of interior size, and when their long range shots fall, they are difficult to beat and have won four Big Ten games and nearly won more before February as a result. The barrage doesn’t need to come from one player either, Penn State has three different options shooting at above 40% from beyond the arc with two more shooting above 30%. It has not turned the Nittany Lions into the Golden State Warriors, but it has allowed Penn State to mask some of its other deficiencies. It might be a risky gambit, but with minimal size on the interior – the Nittany Lions gave up 34 points in the paint Tuesday – it’s Penn State’s best bet on any given night.

But when those shots don’t fall, you get a fairly straightforward result.

Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry said that his team was soft, failing to play tough in Rutgers’ notoriously difficult home environment but as Shrewsberry’s Nittany Lions also went 3-for-13 from deep and 9-for-28 overall from the field in the opening 20 minutes of play. Despite trailing 32-24 at the half, it felt as though Penn State had survived its own cold shooting just enough to stay within reach of Rutgers for a second half surge.

To the Nittany Lions’ credit, an 8-2 run in the early stages of the half would make it a 39-36 game but Penn State would fail to capitalize on the opportunity to tie the game as Rutgers would respond with a 10-2 run of its own to open the game wide again. A 14-5 run the rest of the way, as Penn State made just four baskets in the final 14 minutes of regulation did little to give the Nittany Lions comeback hopes.

Jalen Pickett led the way with 15 points on 7-for-14 shooting while Seth Lundy and Andrew Funk each added 12 of their own on the night as Penn State went 4-for-26 from deep on the night, the worst three-point shooting of the night of the year for the Nittany Lions. Prior to Tuesday the team’s low make total was six in a win over Quinnipiac.

Penn State will look to rebound as it has with relative success all year, returning back to the Bryce Jordan Center for an early afternoon clash against Michigan before heading back on the road for a trip to visit No. 1 Purdue. The remaining nine games on the schedule pose a slightly less ominous road, even if still in an unforgiving Big Ten.