Penn State basketball: Three takeaways from PSU's win over Rutgers

[DavidEckert]

Penn State basketball: Three takeaways from PSU's win over Rutgers

Penn State Nittany Lions basketball defeated the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on Tuesday evening at the Bryce Jordan Center.

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[PrtLng Lion]

When Lundy, Pickett, and Sessoms are all hitting shots, and we have a strong defensive focus like last night, we're a pretty decent team.

 

[psu31trap]

That was a solid win. A team with size that plays fundamentally sound defense can be dangerous in the tournament. One thing is for sure this team is better than their record.

 

[Nitwit]

We are winning games that Chambers would have found ways to lose. I am really impressed with the job that coach Shrewsberry is doing. Kudos to him (and to Sandy).

 

[Erial_Lion]

We are winning games that Chambers would have found ways to lose. I am really impressed with the job that coach Shrewsberry is doing. Kudos to him (and to Sandy).

What games are we winning that Chambers would have “found ways to lose”. Patrick’s last 3 teams, and the team he left Ferry, were better than this year’s squad. I love the potential of what Shrewsberry can do for us…but Chambers also won some pretty big games when he was here and had things heading in a nice direction.

 

[Nitwit]

Rutgers for one. It seemed like under Chambers we often gave away leads late in games by going into long stretches of scoring droughts marked by turning the ball over and taking bad shots. How many times did we see our team come up short at the end of games by not even getting a shot off at the last possession? This team is playing with much more poise and direction. His offense is much more than dribble and than fire up a prayer to beat the shot clock, the team is rebounding better, and his substitution patterns are keeping fresh legs on the floor. They seem much better as a team.

 

[Erial_Lion]

Rutgers for one. It seemed like under Chambers we often gave away leads late in games by going into long stretches of scoring droughts marked by turning the ball over and taking bad shots. How many times did we see our team come up short at the end of games by not even getting a shot off at the last possession? This team is playing with much more poise and direction. His offense is much more than dribble and than fire up a prayer to beat the shot clock, the team is rebounding better, and his substitution patterns are keeping fresh legs on the floor. They seem much better as a team.

So you think a game we won wire to wire against the worst Rutgers team in several years, by 17 points, would have been a loss under Chambers?

Things like rebounding and substitutions are easy to see looking at the numbers…in Chambers last season, we were 89th in the country in Bench minutes. This season, we are 311th (a lot of it due to Pickett playing so many minutes). Our defensive rebounding is about the same as last season and a bit better the last few of Chambers’ years, but this is the worst offensive rebounding team we’ve had in a while. This is our worst offensive efficiency since 2017, and worst defensive efficiency since 2016. Hoping the numbers get better as we get back to full strength.

It’s confirmation bias with a lot of this stuff (if you’re looking at that Rutgers game and seeing a team that Patrick would have lost to, I don’t know what to say). Pat won 40 Big Ten games over his last 5 seasons…you’re greatly overestimating Micah (or underestimating Chambers) if you think he’s the difference in a 17 point win.