Penn State digs hole at Nebraska, stays there in 72-63 loss

Penn State basketball’s shooting woes on the road appeared to conclude Sunday night at Nebraska. Facing the Cornhuskers in a critical game in Lincoln, Seth Lundy and Andrew Funk caught fire from deep and paced the Nittany Lions’ scoring throughout.

Were it not for a defensive collapse in the first half, an explosive scoring performance from Nebraska guard Keisei Tominaga, and another no-show from Penn State’s complementary pieces, it might have mattered.

Instead, Penn State found itself on the losing end of a 72-63 decision to Nebraska in front of 14,385 fans. The loss drops the Nittany Lions to 14-9 on the season and 5-7 against Big Ten competition. 

It also meant another road loss for Penn State this season, falling to 1-6 in true road games and 0-6 this calendar year in games played away from the Bryce Jordan Center.

Here’s a look at what went into the Nittany Lions’ latest setback:

An impossible hole

Penn State’s road scoring troubles were again an issue on Sunday afternoon. They were not as significant as a defensive effort that proved porous, particularly in the first half.

Paced by a pair of 3-pointers from Jamarques Lawrence and Tominaga out of the gates, Nebraska traded blows with three made 3-pointers from Penn State in the game’s first five minutes. That is until the Cornhusker offense took off. Blowing through the first media timeout, Nebraska took a 7-0 run into the game’s first stoppage at 12:28 remaining in the first half. Then they built upon it with another 4-0 run on the back side of it to take a 26-13 lead. 

Though Kebba Njie, Lundy, and Jalen Pickett combined to offset the damage, more was waiting on the other side of Penn State’s 7-0 run. Tominaga kept the pressure on with a bucket, followed by a turnover, a run-out dunk for Sam Griesel, and a back-cut layup for Tominaga. By the time Griesel kicked in an and-one at the basket with 4:18 left in the half, the Nittany Lions trailed 35-20. 

“We just decided at the start of the game we weren’t going to guard them. We were going to give them whatever they wanted to get,” Shrewsberry told Penn State’s broadcast team. “It was easy. They got transition layups, they got baskets around the rim, they got back cuts for layups, and they hit open threes. And when you do that, it’s hard to come back from when you start the game like that. 

Though a Pickett runner and back-to-back Lundy 3-pointers helped cut the deficit to 9 going into the half, the feel-good momentum for Nebraska was too deep of a hole from which to climb out. 

“They made 10 of their first 14 shots,” Shrewsberry said. “Some of them might have been earned, but I don’t know, without looking at it, I feel like a lot of them weren’t.”

Keisei Tominaga goes off

Gashed by Nebraska in the first half, the Cornhuskers owning an 18-6 advantage for points in the paint, of which Derrick Walker was only a small portion, Penn State attempted to right itself out coming out of the break. But, Tominaga immediately added to his 14 first-half points with another 3-pointer just 11 seconds into the resumption of play.

A flash of variety Penn State couldn’t get a handle on, neither from deep or close to the basket, Shrewsberry blamed himself for its lack of preparation.

“He was just in a rhythm. But if you watch basketball and you watch these guys play, this is what he does to people early in games. He gets going. We weren’t prepared for that. That’s on me, once again, I coach this team. I gotta have them ready to be able to guard him,” Shrewsberry said. “I know he’s standing in the logo when he catches and shoots a three, but that’s what he does. Don’t be surprised by it. I gotta run at him, I gotta make him put the ball on the floor.”

Tominaga’s nine points in the first six minutes of the second half offset Penn State’s response. Dipping to a more manageable 41-36 deficit, Tominaga quickly put Nebraska back ahead by double-digits.

“Going back and looking at the stats, he made seven two-pointers, I bet all of those were back-cut layups. None of them were off the dribble,” Shrewsberry said. “That’s what we don’t understand. That falls on me as the coach. I have to get them to understand what we need to do to take away.”

Climbing the mountain

Responding on the backs of sparkplug shooting from Lundy, in particular, finishing with a team-high 24 points and eight made 3-pointers, and Funk, who headed up with back-to-back 3s to make it a 53-50 game, Penn State’s punches were consistently met with a response.

And, consistently, Tominaga was at the center of them. He repeatedly erased Penn State’s opportunities to summit the comeback mountain by putting the Cornhuskers ahead by two-or-more possessions. 

At 57-54, this time Njie hitting one of two free throw attempts at the 5:52 mark, Tominaga again got loose on a back-cut layup, then followed it with an uncalled sequence in which he attempted a pass, caught it, landed on the hardwood, went back up to shoot a 3, and made it, putting Nebraska back ahead by 8 points.

The theme that would hold in the game’s closing minutes. Penn State found itself on the losing end of Nebraska’s winning plays. It included a crucial Walker offensive rebound followed by a Griesel make. And, in desperation time, a Lawrence 3-pointer with 45 seconds to play to go ahead 69-60. 

Next steps

Their NCAA aspirations slipping away with the loss, Shrewsberry lamented his Nittany Lions’ defensive prowess. It came against a Nebraska team snapping a four-game losing streak. With the win, the Huskers improved to 11-13 this season with a 4-9 mark in the Big Ten.

Rather, it’s a lack thereof, Shrewsberry placed the onus on himself for what he described as a “horrible defensive team.”

Adding that he doesn’t have players “that buy into being a defender,” the Nittany Lions’ improvement must be defensive. They’ll need it as they try to bounce back Wednesday when they host Wisconsin (8:30 p.m., BTN) at the BJC. 

“Our defense is the exact same as it was last year. And people struggled to score against us then. You go, you change personnel, now you just don’t have people that are bought into it,” Shrewsberry said. “They want to play offense. They don’t want to play defense the way we want to play it. And, that’s where we got to get better. 

“It’s early February. It’s time to switch it. There are eight games left. Maybe there need to be personnel tweaks that somebody else can do it. But, until somebody steps up and proves that we can shut people down defensively, we’re just going to be chasing our tails and giving somebody else 30 points.”