Gritty, not pretty: Penn State basketball embraces identity in win over Minnesota

First-year Penn State basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry knows that the style of basketball his team plays is unlikely to capture the interest of the channel-surfing neutral fan, looking for an exciting game to catch.

He doesn’t care.

In fact, Shrewsberry seems to kind of like it that way.

“I hope there were a lot of people watching, and I hope there were a lot of people who turned it off like, ‘man, I can’t watch this,'” he said after the Nittany Lions defeated Minnesota, 67-46, on Thursday afternoon.

The Nittany Lions don’t beat you with pretty ball movement and high-flying transition offense. Instead, they drag you into the mud and make you fight your way out. Every point is earned. Every inch of space on the defensive end is contested.

If you aren’t up for that scrap — as Minnesota head coach Ben Johnson suggested was the case for his team on Thursday — leaving with a win is unlikely.

“We’ve gotta be able to find it within ourselves to get our fight back,” Johnson said postgame.

The Nittany Lions have never lost theirs. Not when they dropped three games in a row to start February by a combined nine-point margin. Or when they lost their first two Big Ten games of the season by double digits. Or when they got blown out by UMass in the second game of the season.

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This is not a roster loaded up with talent, but that willingness to embrace who they are, and how they can win, is what has made Penn State competitive in year one under Shrewsberry.

The Nittany Lions score less than any team in the conference, but they have the Big Ten’s third-best defense, holding their opponents to 64.7 points per game. They trail the conference’s leader in that category, Indiana, by half a point.

That was always going to be the foundation. Shrewsberry said as much at the beginning of the season. The defense had to come first, and offensive proficiency would follow.

“Every single time we step on the floor, when I write things up on the board, it pretty much says the same exact thing,” Shrewsberry said last week. “Dominate defensively, be a really tough team to score on. Take great shots, take the best shot for Penn State. Don’t turn the ball over. Dominate effort plays. That’s what winning basketball is.”

With that mission statement in mind, Thursday’s game against the Gophers felt a little bit personal because the Nittany Lions didn’t accomplish the first item on Shrewsberry’s checklist during a trip to Minneapolis last week, and it cost them a win.

The Gophers scored 76 points, the most Penn State has allowed in a regulation game since December 11. They shot 48 percent from the field. Light-scoring big man Eric Curry lit the Nittany Lions up for 22 points, and Penn State lost by six.

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“We were terrible defensively,” Shrewsberry said. “I told them, think about how you felt when you left UMass, think about how you felt when you left Indiana, how you felt when you left Michigan State. The game against Minnesota was right there with those. We just scored the ball, so it didn’t feel as bad because the game was close.”

In response, Penn State defended so well that Thursday’s game was anything but close. Minnesota shot 32 percent from the floor, amounting to 46 points — its second-lowest scoring output of the season.

Curry, whose effort proved the difference in the first clash, finished with one point. He was 0-6 from the field.

“That’s who we are,” Shrewsberry said. “We know who we are. We know how we defend. We’re gonna make you earn every single thing.”

For now, that’s who Penn State has to be. The pretty basketball can come later in the program-building process. To compete right now, and stay competitive in the years to come, the Bryce Jordan Center has to be a graveyard for free-flowing, pleasing-to-the-eye basketball.

If the consequence is a few fans changing the channel, Shrewsberry can live with that.

“Listen to John [Harrar],” Shrewsberry said. “It’s gritty, not pretty.”