In many ways Penn State’s 84-65 thumping of Minnesota on Wednesday night was the tale of two teams facing down the same sorts of things very differently.
There were the Nittany Lions, likely headed towards a new coach, likely headed towards the transfer portal in no small number. There is the losing and the heartbreak, the uncertainty and the anger, the frustration and the confusion.
There is a lot.
Across the court lies a Minnesota team spiraling in a string of losses after finding itself in the Top 25. The Gophers seem headed towards a coaching change as well, or in the very least the seat of Richard Pitino has gotten significantly warmer.
So staring down the barrel of the season’s final days and likely the final chapters of these respective programs current era, there are two ways to play this game. A game that means nothing in the grand scheme, but can be emblematic of a much larger – somewhat intangible thing.
And you can play the game like Penn State did, or the way Minnesota did.
You can play with energy, Penn State grabbing 48 rebounds and getting 18 second chance points while getting 49 points off the bench.
You can play like Minnesota, shooting 36% from the field and never looking up to the task when it came to the moments that would define the game. You can take punches, but can you throw them back. For the most part, Minnesota turned punching bag, and frequently a soft one at that.
You can rack up 19 assists, the Nittany Lions sharing the ball as five different players hit double-digits, shooting 46% from the floor while hitting 40% from beyond the arc.
Or you can look like Minnesota, resigned to whatever the season has become, an exercise in that it’s how you finish and not always how you start that can often define a season. As Sam Sessoms stole the ball in the final seconds of the first half and hit a wide open three to put Penn State ahead 46-28 at the break, it was a reminder that the little things make the difference. Sometimes winning is simply mental, and losing is often a byproduct of lots of little mistakes piling up in overwhelming numbers. Then a close game becomes not so close, then it becomes a blowout.
Then it becomes what the second half was, a stroll through the park for one team and the duty-bound effort of another team just hoping this whole thing would be over soon. Minnesota would cut the lead to 11 with just under five minutes to go, but a 7-0 run by Penn State would shut the door on any comeback hopes.
“Senior night is always an emotional day,” Penn State interim head coach Jim Ferry said after the fact. “It was just great tonight, the way our seniors and how everybody played for the seniors. We played extremely unselfish. Just laying it all out for each other.”
What comes next is – obviously – the bigger story. It was a story not lost on anyone in attendance as the Nittany Lions lined up one last time for introductions and as Penn State’s coaching staff now a decade into its tenure, tried not to think too hard about all the probable *lasts* taking place.
It was just another game, but it wasn’t.
You could see that on Minnesota’s bench too, maybe less obvious but no less present in the back of their minds. Something might happen, something will happen. Everyone will wait to see what that something might be.
And that’s how you end up with a game like Wednesday’s as two teams facing the same sorts of futures took the court and gave it a go. Sure, it’s impossible – and unfair – to say Minnesota players didn’t care or just didn’t try or simply mailed it in. But given the chance to match Penn State’s effort and energy, care and hard work, the Gophers didn’t. And they lost.
“You can see the passion, you can see the love,” Ferry said. “You saw a team that was really connected.”
Given the private nature of Pat Chambers’ firing/resignation/departure, most everyone is left to make half-educated guesses and evaluations of the decision itself. In turn it’s difficult to say much of anything about anything. So this won’t be the place to do so.
But independent of the man himself, the mantra “Attitude” once plastered around the Bryce Jordan Center almost as much as the name of the school, was the calling card of his tenure. Attitude was all the things you could control, all the things that make the difference when the going gets tough. Whatever Chambers’ shortcomings may have been as a coach or mistakes he made as person, his players never quit, they never gave up.
And whatever this team’s shortcomings might be, that particular mindset has lived on under Ferry’s watch.
It’s hard to say what will happen in the next five years to Penn State basketball, it’s hard to say what will happen against Maryland or in the Big Ten Tournament.
But given one last shot at winning at home, a senior class – and perhaps an era of the program – went out the same way it came in. Trying hard because it knows nothing else.
