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Penn State Men’s Basketball: Nittany Lions Fall 63-58 To Miami

The last time a Jim Larranaga led team took the court at the Bryce Jordan Center he was greeted with a buzzer-beater by Nittany Lions’ star Talor Battle to send Penn State and George Mason to overtime in the first round of the 2009 NIT.

Over a decade later, Larranaga and his Miami Hurricanes didn’t need the dramatics to win a 63-58 contest against Penn State on Wednesday evening, but timely shotmaking – and defense – certainty helped.

In a game that featured both teams leading by multiple baskets it was the little things that made the biggest difference. For Penn State it was 15 turnovers – eight Miami points coming from those miscues – while the Hurricanes made seven of their final 12 attempts from the field in the final eight minutes of regulation.

“I thought we played with a defensive intensity and focus for 40 minutes tonight, a little different from some of the other games where we defended for a half, maybe 30 minutes. Tonight, we really stuck with it,” Larrañaga said after the game.

As for the Nittany Lions, trailing 29-23 at the half was far from an insurmountable lead but Penn State’s inability to create offense off the dribble and a 6-for-24 night from beyond the arc posed a difficult challenge for maintaining any comeback efforts.

To its credit, Penn State would take a 45-40 lead with 12:14 to go in regulation but a 14-3 run by Miami would put the Hurricanes ahead for good. Three turnovers during that span doing little to help Penn State’s cause.

“We don’t value the basketball enough right now,” Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry said after the game. “So that’s something that we’re going to get cleaned up. We do a lot of drills to start practice to work on valuing the basketball. And for us to be a good team. We have to do that. We have to take care of the ball every single time and value every single possession and that takes a lot of effort. We’re spending a lot of effort on the defense end to get stops and we’re just basically getting a stop and just giving them the ball back. We can’t win like that.”

Despite the loss, Shrewsberry was pleased with the defensive effort and rightly should have been. For the fifth time this season Penn State held its opponent to fewer than 65 points and maintained a strong presence on the boards. Miami shot just 43% from the field, and was out rebounded by 11 on the glass while shooting just five free throws over the course of the game. For the fifth time in seven games Penn State out-rebounded its opponent, grabbing at least 35 rebounds in every game this season.

“63 points has to be enough,” Shrewsberry said.

By the end of the night big man John Harrar led the Nittany Lions with 16 points and 12 rebounds while Seth Lundy poured in 14 of his own. Myles Dread managed nine points going 3-for-8 from beyond the arc. Crafty guard Sam Sessoms was held largely in check, scoring just eight on 4-for-12 shooting.

Penn State will now look to a Sunday meeting against Ohio State to open Big Ten play, and once again the Nittany Lions won’t have Talor Battle, but they will have the need to make timely shots.