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Penn State gets hot, clamps down, to notch 74-70 win at Northwestern

nate-mug-10.12.14by:Nate Bauer•01/05/22•

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John Harrar and Seth Lundy (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)

Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry got his first Big Ten win Sunday against Indiana.

Wednesday night he notched another first, his Nittany Lions topping Northwestern in Evanston, Ill., with a 74-70 decision. Coming back from a 10-point deficit with less than 10 minutes to play in regulation, the win marked his first conference road win and evened the program at 2-2 in the Big Ten, 7-5 overall.

And Shrewsberry, having been through the rigors of the conference in his time at Purdue as an assistant under Matt Painter, understood to appreciate it. 

“For anybody in the Big Ten, it’s hard to win on the road,” Shrewsberry said. “Anytime you get an opportunity to win outside of your building, you got to cherish every single one of those. It’s not gonna happen very much.”

Penn State’s path to victory

For 30 minutes Wednesday night, Shrewsberry’s assertion looked to be true.

Trading jabs in the first half, the Nittany Lions coughed up seven turnovers to trail 34-29 heading into the locker room.

The second saw a swing in momentum, though.

The Nittany Lions struggled to keep pace with a Northwestern side that got hot. But as Boo Buie and Ty Berry helped build the Wildcats’ lead, Penn State sought defensive composure. 

“There were a few times where I felt like we were having momentum in the second half. Then we had a defensive breakdown and they’d get a three. We lost ourselves a little bit,” Shrewsberry said. “I felt like if we could play with more discipline defensively… I thought we could crawl back in it.”

Penn State’s scoring solution

“We started scoring late. It took us a while to get our offense going. But we started scoring the ball late, getting to the basket, making some threes. I felt like if our defense could hold up long enough, then we could have a chance to maybe win it at the end, which happened.”

Sparked by a Dallion Johnson 3-pointer at the 9:14 mark, the Nittany Lions started hitting from the floor.

Knocking in nine of their final 13 shots down the stretch, with Seth Lundy going off to score the Nittany Lions’ final eight points in what’d been a 1-point game, the juxtaposition proved effective against the defensive improvements.

Managing to contain Buie, who’d scored 20 points in the first 30 minutes but was limited to just one bucket the rest of the way, Penn State emerged with the win.

“This is a good team. How they play, how they defend, what they do offensively, they really make it tough. They spread you out with their shooting. They got off to a great start shooting the ball and it put pressure on us in terms of how we needed to guard them,” Shrewsberry said. “So I just thought this was a gritty, tough win for us and I’m happy to get out here with a win.”

The Nittany Lions return to action Sunday at noon when they host No. 3 Purdue at the Bryce Jordan Center.

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