Game stories are – as the name suggests – a retelling. In theory they exist to provide readers who weren’t in attendance a vivid recounting of how the competition unfolded. In an era long gone, the prose of Grantland Rice would flow off the page turning he mundane competition in a story of gladiators clashing for glory.
Game stories were at one point an art, a snapshot of a moment, history captured in the afterglow of competition. They documented victory and defeat, triumph and the sadness of failures.
These days a game story still serves the same purpose, but in a world where you can watch anything anywhere and get updates as soon as they happen, it has lost at least some of its meaning. Game stories are often now relegated to a thing that must be done, because there is still a utility in telling the world what happened and virtue in documenting the day’s events. Somebody somewhere wants to know what happened last night.
But trust me, you potentially unaware Penn State men’s basketball fan — you didn’t miss anything.
Because Penn State lost to Indiana 74-57 on Wednesday night in a game that was only that close because the Hoosiers were up 46-17 at the half and opted to coast the rest of the way. The Nittany Lions made five shots in the opening 20 minutes of play out of their 30 attempts which says about all that needs to be said. By the time the game hit the midway point it had also long found its conclusion.
Penn State would turn a second half 32-point deficit to just 14 points with 3:15 to go, but as one might imagine it was far too little too late. Indiana scored three more times in the final minutes to go ahead by 19 and then the game’s final margin of 17.
The Nittany Lions finished the night shooting 33% from the field while turning the ball over 14 times for a second-straight game of cold shooting but charitable ball handling. Only John Harrar and Jalen Pickett managed double-digit scoring while Seth Lundy and Myles Dread went 5-of-18 from the field. Penn State did manage 17 offensive rebounds but 20-for-60 shooting provided ample opportunity to collect them.
It was ugly. An old school game story might call this a violent defeat in which Penn State was struck from the court with its tail between its legs, left to lick its wounds.
In today’s game story it won’t be so flowing. Penn State struggled, again, on the offensive end of the floor in an era of basketball when scoring is king. The Nittany Lions are flawed, and appear to be regressing to their inevitable mean after an inspired open to Big Ten play.
For coach Micah Shrewsberry it is many things, perhaps not a wake up call as much as a baptism to the sort of situation he has signed up for. If nothing else Shrewsberry can find some solace in the fact his guns-for-hire team of aging student-athletes is just the first iteration – one which was forced by roster turnover not of his own doing – of a program that has shown promise under his watch. It will almost certainly get better, if for no other reason than it can’t get much worse than that.
Penn State travels back home for a Monday night meeting against Iowa, a team it just lost to days ago in Iowa City. If there’s any hope for Shrewsberry to take from Wednesday’s loss it’s that he did beat the Hoosiers the first time around this season, so if the second time is the charm – Monday could prove fruitful.
And so ends the retelling of the day’s events.
