As Penn State’s men’s basketball team looks to pick up its first Big Ten win of the season on the road tonight, the solution to the Nittany Lions’ struggles aren’t that complicated.
Make shots.
More specifically Penn State needs Brandon Taylor to make shots.
In a team game it’s hard to pin losing on one player, and Penn State hasn’t fallen to 0-3 in the Big Ten simply because of Taylor, but improved play by one of the most veteran Nittany Lions will go a long way toward reversing the current trend. The same could be said for an otherwise absent Ross Travis, a player whose game is based on rebounding. He only picked up two rebounds against Michigan.
Taylor shot 8-of-39 from the floor over the last five games. Of 12 of his last 21 shots from outside the arc, only 4 were good.
As far as the team is concerned the cure is to just keep shooting.
“Slumps are mostly mental,” guard and resident shooting ace DJ Newbill said on Monday.
“Just keep shooting.” Head coach Pat Chambers said earlier in the season.
And in Taylor’s defense that really is the cure. He is a capable shooter with an inside-outside game that creates matchup issues for teams when he’s on his game. Confident hook shots in the paint, confident threes in transition. With Penn State getting nearly 20 or more points off the bench each night and contributions from the majority of the starting five, two of Penn State’s close losses turn wins with a few more Taylor-made baskets.
“We were prepared for him to post up on us but at the same time, he’s taking the high volume three’s so he must be making them in practice,” Michigan coach John Beline said after Michigan’s win against Penn State. “He’s a guy that could end up going out and getting 30 and make 10 of those because he’s in that four position that a lot of people have trouble guarding the three-ball. But we saw him as both an inside-outside guy.
“I felt bad for Taylor. Taylor got some really good looks inside. We switched a lot of screens early and he had some really point blank shots that didn’t go down. We rebounded the ball well which we didn’t do the other day. We had to keep changing defenses. Pat (Chambers) has got a really great offensive plan and we didn’t want them to have to dial up (D.J.) Newbill or Taylor or any of their guys too much, so we tried to do what we could do to keep them off balance.”
And Indiana will try and do the same tonight. The Hoosiers are coming off a big win over Ohio State and looking to keep the momentum going against a Penn State team that started 12-1 and has struggled to figure out how this whole “winning” thing works.
So while Taylor might be the statistical issue, in many ways his struggles are just the physical embodiment of Penn State’s issues so far as a whole. Things were easier during out of conference play but that time has long passed. Have fun, be confident, and don’t be afraid to miss.
Even so, if Penn State wants to do something with this season, everyone — including Taylor — will have to step up their game moving forward.
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