Mike Rhoades shares key to forcing Rutgers into turnovers

Penn State defeated Rutgers 61-46 and head coach Mike Rhoades credited his team for forcing turnovers the whole night.

The Nittany Lions came into Piscataway and made it a very ugly game. Even leading just 26-24 at halftime, Penn State turned up the pressure in the final 20 minutes.

After the game, Rhoades mentioned Penn State’s lofty goals on the defensive end of things to force Rutgers and other opponents into mistakes.

“We’re gonna press everybody and try to get deflections,” Rhoades said postgame. “You know that we want to try to get 50 deflections a game, some deflections lead to turnovers. I just think it’s a cumulative effect with our press. Always just going to take the ball from people but there’s opportunities to get a trap or put them in a tough position, speed them up. I did think that you know, some of the matchups we could pressure the ball a little more, a little bit longer, but it’s just about what we’re gonna do.”

Rhoades even acknowledged that his own team had too many turnovers in the win. Even winning in a sloppy fashion is still a win.

Still, Rhoades wanted to clean that part of the game up while keeping up aggressiveness on the defensive end of things.

“We had too many turnovers you know, we want to be plus 10 and we weren’t plus 10,” Rhoades said. “But I thought turning them over throughout the game put them on their heels a little bit. I thought our pressure on the dribbler didn’t allow them to smoothly get in their pace. You know, that doesn’t show up in the stat line or in turnovers, but that’s that cumulative effect.”

Rhoades mentioned playing that way the entire game is certainly difficult, but it can be very effective when the Nittany Lions pull it off.

“We talk about constant pressure,” Rhoades said. “Thought the guys coming off the bench … a couple of times a good pressure.”

Adrian Baldwin Jr. led the way for the Nittany Lions with 15 points, five rebounds and seven assists. D’Marco Dunn added 14 points, seven rebounds and one assist.

Overall, Penn State forced 19 turnovers while committing 13 on its end. So plus-six isn’t bad for Rhoades and crew.

But the head coach mentioned being plus-10, which is a nice goal each outing. Penn State (10-11) is back in action Saturday against Indiana at 12:00 p.m. ET.