Penn State fends off Thanksgiving letdown, tops Lafayette, 70-57

Micah Shrewsberry painted the picture of a Thanksgiving well spent for Penn State basketball. Players and staff joined the head coach and his family for an event that included dinner, games, and sports. 

And, according to Shrewsberry, it also might have involved some overindulgence in the dining room.

“Apparently we ate too much food because we started like that,” Shrewsberry said. “We had a good time yesterday, though.”

Hosting Lafayette for a less familial affair Friday night, it showed. 

Despite a sluggish start and an early deficit, the Nittany Lions roared back to earn a 70-57 win over the Leopards. The win improved Penn State to 6-1 on the season and came in front of 5,652 fans at the Bryce Jordan Center. 

Here is a look at how it went down:

Thanksgiving hangover

Camren Wynter opened the scoring for Penn State with a 3-pointer. He also responded to Lafayette’s ensuing 7-0 run with another make from deep.

Still, Penn State’s interjections from beyond the arc, the Nittany Lions’ first five makes all coming from deep, weren’t enough to avoid finding themselves trailing 19-12 when Shrewsberry took a timeout.

Unhappy with what he’d witnessed to that point, the Nittany Lions failing to keep Lafayette off the offensive glass, Shrewsberry couldn’t abide by a chasm in rebounding and second-chance points allowed.

“One guy (Josh Rivera) had five offensive rebounds the first nine minutes of the game. That just shows we weren’t where we needed to be,” Shrewsberry said. “But we also weren’t solid defensively. I thought we gambled a couple of times and fouled them. Now they’re getting free throws.”

After an uncharacteristic timeout spent, Shrewsberry called for a wakeup from his team on the defensive end of the floor. 

“I didn’t think we were solid. If we were solid and they’re scoring, I got it, but I didn’t think we were solid,” Shrewsberry said. “And then we weren’t boxing out defensively. I like to save my timeouts. But sometimes it’s needed to call it early to refocus. But I thought we played well after that.”

Penn State’s response

They did play well after that. Responding to the early deficit with a 7-0 run of their own, the Nittany Lions traded jabs for the ensuing five minutes but started to find stops.

Paced by a burst of offense from Seth Lundy in the final seven minutes of the half, Penn State dropped a 9-0 run, then capped the period with another Lundy dagger from deep and a crafty Jalen Pickett stop-and-go at the basket in the final seconds. 

“I thought we responded well at the end of the first half,” Shrewsberry said. “And then start of the second half, we were really guarding. We were moving the ball, we were playing the right way, and it kind of opened things up from there.”

Defensive stand

The second half was very much to Shrewsberry’s liking. 

Drawing something up for Andrew Funk, who’d been kept off the board to that point in the game, the Nittany Lions got an immediate 3-pointer to take a 45-32 advantage out of the break.

And though Leo O’Boyle pushed back with a bucket at the basket, it only slightly offset a 15-2 run that bulged Penn State’s advantage to 57-34.

Getting points on offense concurrent to a stifling defensive effort, the Nittany Lions found their calling card of forcing opponents into difficult shots.

“Defensively, I still like where we are. They shot 31 percent for the game,” Shrewsberry said. “We’re guarding. We’re getting people to take the shots we want them to take. They lead the country in the amount of 3s, they shot 28, and they shot a bunch late, too. And they made a bunch late. So I thought we did a really good job.”

Penn State returns to action Tuesday when it travels to Clemson for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. The game airs at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast by ESPNU.