Following its West Coast swing, Penn State returned to home turf to host Rutgers in a Wednesday night battle of Big Ten bottom-dwellers.
An embarrassing first half doomed the Nittany Lions in their first conference game as a betting favorite all season, losing 85-72 and dropping them to 11-16 and 2-14 against Big Ten foes as head coach Mike Rhoades’ seat warms up.
“We had a really great shootaround today, great spirited shootaround, but we must have left it there,” Rhoades said after the game.
How it happened
The opening three minutes featured a comical string of mishaps by the Nittany Lions, who fell into a 9-0 hole before Rhoades burned his first timeout of the game.
Out of the break, Penn State dropped to 0-for-6 from the field with four turnovers before Kayden Mingo scored a mid-range jumper to avoid the shutout.
Rutgers extended its lead to 16-2, powered by seven points from leading scorer Tariq Francis, heading into the under-12 media timeout.
“Looking up and seeing we’re down by so much could make us anxious to make a play and get the game all back in one possession,” Mingo said.
Still sitting at two points eight minutes into the game, Melih Tunca dribbled into Mingo before then handed the ball to him and patted his back mid-play, before Mingo threw up a prayer that went unanswered as the shot clock expired.
Moments later, Ivan Jurić sent the crowd into a sarcastic frenzy with an and-one opportunity, but he couldn’t convert from the line.
The Nittany Lions cut the deficit to 20-12 with improved shot selection and some errors by the Scarlet Knights, but that was the closest they came before a burst from Rutgers.
Penn State struggled to run plays, with an apparent lack of coordination and confidence resulting in several near shot-clock violations. A group that avoided turnovers early in the season unraveled quickly, allowing the Scarlet Knights easy looks on breakaways.
When the dust settled on a lopsided first half, the scoreboard read 39-20 in favor of the visitors.
The Nittany Lions opened the second half with some scoring success in the paint, getting contributions from Jurić, Josh Reed, Mingo and Dom Stewart to make it a 46-31 contest.
“Josh played hard today,” Rhoades said. “You guys saw that. We had to take him out a few times because he got winded.”
Tunca recorded back-to-back layups and a triple within a two-minute window to make it 52-40, which gave the Jordan Center crowd some juice.
Penn State attempted to chip away at the lead but couldn’t get stops defensively, allowing four Scarlet Knights to reach double digits midway through the second half.
Trailing 67-49, the Nittany Lions got some friendly whistles which helped spark a nine-point run to slice into the lead. Mingo tallied four points from the floor and three from the line during the stretch.
“We don’t quit. Our guys fight. We just didn’t have enough tonight … tale of two halves,” Rhoades said.
Both teams found themselves in foul trouble, resulting in a series of exchanged free throws down the stretch, though Rutgers maintained a sizable advantage at 76-63 headed into the final media timeout of the game.
Seven consecutive points from Reed cut the lead to just eight points out of the break, but that was as close as it got. The Scarlet Knights earned their first road win of the season by an 85-72 mark.
Team leaders
Points: Josh Reed, 22
Assists: Kayden Mingo, 6
Rebounds: Josh Reed, 6
Up next: Penn State takes on its toughest remaining opponent in the regular season, No. 9 Nebraska on the road at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
