With longtime starting forward Lamar Stevens gone to graduation and with more than 260 days since its last game, Penn State men’s basketball shook off the rust to beat Virginia Military Institute 86-65 on Saturday afternoon at the Bryce Jordan Center for a season-opening win.
The game, which came three-days following a postponed season-opener against Drexel due to a positive COVID-19 test, was the first since now former head coach Pat Chambers resigned (or was fired) effectively a month ago.
Fittingly, senior guard Jamari Wheeler, who has been outspoken in the university’s handling of Chambers’ departure, was also the most outspoken player on the floor putting together an 18-point (4-of-9 from three) six-rebound and five-steal performance.
He was joined by Myreon Jones and Seth Lundy with 12 points each. Izaiah Brockington, who had largely been used as a spark sixth-man in 2019-20, contributed 15 points, eight rebounds and three steals of his own. Newcomer transfer guard Sam Sessoms, who was recently granted immediate eligibility following an NCAA waiver ruling in his favor, added 12 points off the bench.
Penn State opened with a predictable amount of rust, leading VMI, coached by former Nittany Lion Dan Earl, 37-35 at the break.
The Nittany Lions would go on to eventually pull away, a 16-8 run to open the second half and subsequent bursts in the final 20 minutes turning a moderately close affair into the eventual result.
“All of us are just really grateful for the opportunity to play this game,” said Penn State interim head coach Jim Ferry. “It’s been so long. I mean, it’s probably almost been, close to 300 days since we played our last game. These guys have worked really, really hard. They have really sacrificed a lot. That goes for everybody, everybody who was able to help us put the games together and to be able to go out here and play tonight was a big deal for us, it really was.’
“With that said, I think it looks like we hadn’t played in 300 days,” Ferry said. ‘We had a lot of get out a lot of rust and guys getting to know each other, first competition, not against ourselves, in a long time, and a lot of practices, and I think we really just needed this. We needed this, to play against somebody else. We needed to play against someone in a different uniform running different things, challenging us in different ways.”
The Nittany Lions shot 43% from the floor and 13-of-14 from the line, forced 25 turnovers and coughed it up just 11 times while scoring 40 points in the paint and collecting 18 steals for 34 points off turnovers. Penn State won the battle on the glass 40-36 but gave up 14 second-chance points.
Penn State will once again hit the floor at 5 p.m. Wednesday against VCU. That game will air on FS1.
