In sportswriting the implied purpose of a game story, the immediate journalistic response to a game ending, is that you will talk about the game. But sometimes the game isn’t what there is to talk about. Sometimes the athletes and their play is far more interesting than a summation of what happened and when.
Because to be honest most basketball games are similar, and a lot of them are not all that interesting to diligently regurgitate on paper. Penn State led 53-40 at the half and won 93-81 against Illinois at the Bryce Jordan Center, which is – to be fair – a bit of an eyebrow raiser for a team that has struggled at times to score in volume during Big Ten play, then on Tuesday scored like it was nothing.
Or rather Jalen Pickett did. In the first half Penn State’s star guard scored 24 points on 10-of-12 shooting. It was a masterclass in all the things Pickett is so good at, a midrange game, a growing threat from beyond the arc and finishing around the rim with his back to the basket. Jalen Pickett is everything you want your point guard to be and everything you hope your favorite team doesn’t have to face.
Seth Lundy, who has had an excellent season in his own right and deserves some continued praise, finished the half with 11 points, but all eyes were on Pickett. In the second half Pickett did everything he wanted, a corner three in the face of an Illinois’ defender, a 40-point clinching free throw. Pickett was the epitome of efficiency, scoring 41 points — the most by any Big Ten player in a game this season and the most by a Nittany Lion since 1961 — on just 20 shots while making and shooting just six free throws.
For its part Illinois would make the occasional charge but was never closer than eight points in the final 8:37 of regulation. Even at that point the hope was fleeting as Penn State would surge ahead by 14 just two minutes later. On paper it improved the Nittany Lions to 6-9 in Big Ten play and 15-11 overall. It was a crucial win in a season that had begun to spiral away from the potential for a feel-good ending that it seemed destined for a few months ago.
But let us indulge for a moment in the greatness of a 40 point game. Forget the score, forget the season, forget the rest of it. 20 points is a nice night, 30 is something special, 40 is something you actually remember. That’s a game you write home about, a box score you just look at and shake you head in amazement. Especially when it comes on near perfect efficiency.
“I would love to play in the NBA if I ever got a chance to,” Pickett told StateCollege.com earlier this season. “That would probably be — it would be filled with emotions on both sides for them [his family] and for me to finally get there. So if I’m grateful if that opportunity happens.”
It’s hard to ignore what nights like tonight do for Pickett and those dreams. This season he has long been among the best point guards in the nation, what his professional future holds is to be determined, but on Tuesday night Pickett made a statement, looking down a losing-streak, a span of his own struggles and said “that’s enough.”
For fans of Penn State men’s basketball nights like Tuesday must feel like they are the reward for an incalculable volume of suffering, they are the justifications for those moments when people ask them “why do you watch?” and those who scoff at the idea a historically irrelevant basketball program has anyone worth watching in the first place. Of course Tim Fraizer, Talor Battle, Tony Carr, DJ Newbill and a host of others have made a claim to the contrary, but the impression is still there all the same.
Time will tell what will happen to the rest of Penn State’s season. One good night doesn’t make you win games on other nights, but for one night you could just appreciate a baller, balling. And that’s why we watch in the first place, isn’t it? So forget the game story for one night.
