On the whole – including a 67-61 loss to Maryland on the road Monday night – Penn State men’s basketball has done just about everything new head coach Micah Shrewsberry has asked of them. In the very least they have tried to do everything.
The Nittany Lions have played defense. Penn State leads the Big Ten in scoring defense giving up just 64.8 points per contest.
They have tried hard, a bit of a moral victory, but Penn State has been on the winning end and the near-winning end of multiple double-digit comeback efforts. Whatever weaknesses the Nittany Lions might have, it’s not for a lack of trying. That might not be everything, but it’s a good place to start if you’re a team facing an opponent that is often more talented.
They seem to have bought in. The Nittany Lions might not be dynamic but they know what they’re trying to do. It might not always lead to perfect execution, but at its best Penn State looks like well oiled machine, or at least an adequately oiled one.
But scoring when it matters most? It has been a mixed bag, perhaps an impossible pitfall to avoid as a team that isn’t bad but isn’t great. Penn State has won close games (four of Penn State’s six Big Ten wins have come by four or fewer points) but they have lost them as well.
Losing is impossible to avoid in college basketball, but as the Nittany Lions couldn’t overcome Maryland’s small second half lead despite the Terps failing to score from the field in the final 6:20 of regulation, it was a reminder of two things: how small and how wide the margin is.
The small margin? The Nittany Lions hung around, sometimes looking the better team, but nevertheless finding themselves tied with Maryland 28-28 at the half following a late turnover by Penn State guard Sam Sessoms and score by the Terps at the buzzer.
In the second half a 6-0 run would put Maryland ahead by as many as 13 but Penn State continued to do what it has done all year – fight back, but the final punch never landed. The Nittany Lions would make just two baskets from the 5:40 mark until there were just 57 seconds remaining in regulation. It was never enough despite the Terps making just two baskets over the final 7:50. Free throws would decide the rest in spite of Penn State being so close, missing crucial offensive opportunities as the clock ticked onward. [Penn State shot 54% from the field in the second half getting 17 points from Sessoms, 14 points from John Harrar and 13 from Jalen Pickett but the Nittany Lions went 2-for-7 in effectively the final four minutes of play.]
The margin itself at game’s end was six points, two baskets, a few mistakes [Nittany Lions had 13 turnovers] here or there turned into smart plays. It doesn’t take much to turn a two possession loss into a two possession win. The margin is in many ways not that wide and not that hard to explain.
But the margin between those two things can be far wider than the final score. Shrewsberry’s crew has done everything it can – with much success for the most part – to play a low scoring game that fits their current talent level. The challenge now is this team finding ways to more consistently find itself in those crucial moments and many of the moments leading up to them. Every team can do it from time to time – Penn State has this year too. But doing it over and over again? A hard task. A wider gap to cross than simply understanding what six points looks like, it’s also what six points feels like when you play winning basketball.
That takes many things, least of all more and more talent. Penn State has a roster that is plenty talented – the margin doesn’t become small without it – but that same talent has issues finding itself on the offensive end on a regular basis. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s how it works sometimes, but it can make the tantalizingly close also tantalizingly far.
The good news; Shrewsberry is getting something out of this group, and the difference between close losses and close wins might not be as far as it looks. The question now is if the Nittany Lions’ incoming freshmen class closes the gap all the way, or just makes it a bit more tantalizingly close.
