Penn State Men’s Basketball: Nittany Lions Set Single-Game Record, Roll Past Winthrop 93-68 in Season Opener

At Big Ten Media Days in October it didn’t take long for Seth Lundy and Jalen Pickett to answer when asked to make a bold prediction about Penn State’s upcoming season. One said he believed the Nittany Lions would be the best shooting team in the conference while the other floated the possibility the Nittany Lions would have a bye in the first two rounds of the Big Ten tournament, a testament to a quality year.

While Penn State’s 93-68 season-opening victory over Winthrop on Monday night was not proof that either prediction was on the verge of being realized, as the Nittany Lions set a program single game record with 18 made three-pointers [16 makes set the new record] shooting 47.4% from beyond the arc and 55% from the field overall, it certainly wasn’t a bad opening argument.

Penn State did much of what you might expect during the first game of the year, knocking off the rust early before showing its form and depth of shooting to lead 44-32 at the half. The Nittany Lions got 15 points from the veteran Pickett on 6-for-7 shooting while Penn State made nine attempts from beyond the arc in the opening 20 minutes of play. Winthrop managed a respectable 46% shooting clip to stay within reach and a -3 disparity on the boards.

The Nittany Lions opened the second half on an 8-0 run to put Penn State ahead 52-32 early in the final 20 minutes of play. New Nittany Lion and former Bucknell Bison, Andrew Funk poured in 13 second-half points to bring his game total to 22 just a point behind Pickett’s game-high mark. Winthrop would get within 13 points with just inside nine minutes to go in regulation but Penn State would respond with a 12-2 run of its own to effectively end the game.

Across the box score Seth Lundy added 10 points and Myles Dread chipped in 12 of his own on 4-for-6 shooting from beyond the arc to round out the double-digit scoring Nittany Lions. Caleb Dorsey led the way with six rebounds as Penn State went +6 on the glass and scored 10 second-chance points. The Nittany Lions also tallied 28 points off of turnovers. All told by the night’s end Penn State would see eight players take the court for over 10 minutes with freshman forward Kebba Njie the highest-minutes totaling freshman at 10.

In the end Monday night’s victory told a story you more or less would have expected, Penn State has depth, can shoot the ball and is still growing in the paint. The Nittany Lions will have to prove that a hot shooting evening wasn’t an aberration if they want to meet their loft shooting goals, but they either go in or they don’t, and on Monday night Penn State lived up to the type of team it wants to become.