Three takeaways from Penn State basketball's loss to No. 16 Ohio State

Penn State basketball hung around, but couldn’t take down No. 16 Ohio State in a 61-56 road defeat.

The loss moves the Nittany Lions to 8-7 and 3-4 in Big Ten play.

Let’s dive into some takeaways from the game.

1. Without Seth Lundy, Penn State offense sputters

Penn State announced before the game that leading scorer Seth Lundy was not available for unspecified reasons.

The Nittany Lions certainly missed him.

They scored only 56 points, tying their lowest output of the season. Penn State lacked efficiency, too. It made 40 percent of its field goal attempts — its worst mark in seven conference games and its second-worst showing overall.

The Nittany Lions missed their share of open looks — shots Lundy might have knocked down, had he been available.

“We missed him,” head coach Micah Shrewsberry said.

“We got a boatload of open threes in the corner. That’s usually him.”

Overall, though, their offense looked much less cohesive than it has in recent games.

Only Sam Sessoms and Jalen Pickett reached double figures for the visitors.

Perhaps most importantly, Penn State connected on only 6 of its 22 three-point attempts on the afternoon. It’s the fifth time this season the Nittany Lions converted below a 30 percent clip from range. They are 0-5 in those games.

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2. Lions do the job on defense

This game was a rock fight. It was a slow slog at a tempo that favors Penn State, which plays at a slower pace than all but four teams in power conference basketball.

Ohio State scored only 61 points — its second-lowest total of the season. The Buckeyes made 39 percent of their shots from the field, which is their third-worst mark of the campaign.

“It was going to be a grind game,” Ohio State guard and former Nittany Lion Jamari Wheeler said. “Coach [Holtmann] already told us to be prepared for that.”

The Nittany Lions took away the three-point line. Ohio State made just 3 of the 12 triples it attempted, tying a season-low.

Buckeye big man Zed Key complemented Liddell’s scoring with 10 points, but that came on 4-11 shooting. Talented freshman Malaki Branham, who’d averaged 20.5 points over his last four games, made just one of his seven field-goal attempts.

Nobody else reached double figures against Penn State, who managed quite well without Lundy — one of their best individual defenders.

“You wanna do everything right to give yourselves a chance,” Shrewsberry said. “I thought we did that. We’ve been doing that for a while, we’ve been guarding people. We’ve been playing the style of offense that on the other end that takes time. It’s keeping us in games.”

3. Free throw line proves decisive

The Nittany Lions kept a lid on the Ohio State offense, but the Buckeyes turned to the free-throw line to bail themselves out.

Neither team posted an efficient game at the stripe. Penn State shot 57 percent in that area and Ohio State shot 67 percent.

But the sheer volume of free throw attempts for the Buckeyes proved to be one of the difference makers in this game.

Ohio State shot 36 free throws, compared to just 14 for the Nittany Lions. Twenty-seven of those freebies came in the second half for the Buckeyes.

“We weren’t as disciplined as we usually are,” Shrewsberry said. “We went for some steals on post feeds, we went for some steals on the perimeter where we put ourselves in some bad positions and we fouled.”

Jalanni White and Myles Dread both fouled out of the game for the Nittany Lions.

“I thought we did a good job driving it, much better in the second half,” Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann said.

“We gotta make more free throws, but getting there is really important. And then in the last few minutes of the game, if you can execute and get to the line, that’s really how you close games out.”