Mike Rhoades entered the month of January with a path to the NCAA Tournament. Penn State had lost just two games and beaten No. 8 Purdue by double digits. Over the past four weeks, however, the Nittany Lions have dropped six games, half of which have been decided by one score. As March draws closer, it’s becoming crunch time for Rhoades’ program.
Penn State will return to Rec Hall on Thursday, when it will face an Ohio State team that convincingly beat Iowa on Monday and defeated the Boilermakers the week before. There’s hardly any more room for late-game collapses, like the one the Nittany Lions sustained with a five-point lead in the closing minutes of a 76-72 loss at Michigan on Monday.
From here on out, every contest is a must-win affair for Penn State.
“This has been a hard month for us, and we’re right there, but we’re not there. We haven’t gotten over the hump yet,” Rhoades said from the Rec Hall press room on Wednesday. “We haven’t closed out a one-possession game the right way, but we have that fight. We’re not losing that fight.”
But the injury battle is something Rhoades can’t avoid, and it’s been at the core of the Nittany Lions’ rough winter stretch. Puff Johnson, a starter and team captain, has been ruled inactive in each of the team’s past three games. And leading scorer Ace Baldwin Jr., last season’s Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, has played through a back injury for two weeks.
It was Baldwin who took Penn State’s final shot with seven seconds remaining against the Wolverines — a contested 3-point attempt that banged off the rim. He’s averaged just over four turnovers per game since his injury at Illinois on Jan. 8, and hasn’t produced at the level Rhoades likely knows he’s capable of since his return.
“It’s the give and take. You want to make sure we put them in positions to succeed and lead our team, but also try not to put so much on them as well,” Rhoades said. “That’s a tough balance for a fifth-year senior point guard who wants it too. That’s something we just keep talking about, keep addressing, keep talking to Ace about, going from there. And losing Puff makes that harder too.”
With Johnson sidelined and Baldwin limited, in terms of production, the spotlight will only shine brighter on the rest of the roster to succeed. That doesn’t necessarily mean taking the ball out of Baldwin’s hands in late-game situations, but doing the little things like being smart and cautious with the basketball.
The Nittany Lions turned the ball over 18 times against the Wolverines. Those turnovers, especially late in games, are what have “been killing us,” Rhoades said. Take those giveaways out of the equation against Michigan and Penn State likely finds itself with a victory, a Quad-1 victory at that.
“We’ve had urgency all month, really. We’re just not closing out games,” Rhoades said. “So, look, we got the second half of the Big Ten schedule right here in front of us. We gotta go make some things happen. We got to have urgency to close out games, from our coaching staff down to all our players. We’re doing a lot of good things, but we’re not getting the results. We got to go get the results.”
The clock is ticking and the heat is on. It’ll likely take a near-perfect effort over the remainder of the regular season for an NCAA Tournament bid. What once appeared inevitable is now, all of a sudden, improbable. But the Nittany Lions aren’t out yet. Their fate lies in the second half of the Big Ten schedule, all beginning with a test against the red-hot Buckeyes on Thursday.
“It’s pressure. But that’s what we want. It’s a sense of urgency,” senior guard D’Marco Dunn said. “When it’s time to lock in, I think we got a good group of guys who understand what needs to be done, what it takes to win at this level. And, so, we want that. We want times like these, where we have to lock in to get the job done. It’s exciting for us.”
