Three takeaways from Penn State basketball's loss to Rutgers

Penn State Nittany Lions basketball suffered yet another tight road defeat on Sunday, falling 59-58 to Rutgers.

With the loss, PSU concludes the regular season at 12-16 and 7-13 in the Big Ten.

Let’s look at some takeaways from the game.

A Frantic Comeback Falls Just Short

It all felt a little bit too familiar at the sound of the final buzzer for Penn State fans. The Nittany Lions lost their ninth game of the season by six points or fewer out of 13 games decided within that margin.

Just to get into that position, though, required one of PSU’s best stretches of the season.

Trailing by 10 with 7:36 left to play, Penn State used a 12-2 run over the next 5:36 to tie the game with two minutes remaining. Seth Lundy energized the late-game run, scoring 11 of his game-high 17 points in the second half.

A pair of dubious shot selection choices put Penn State behind the eight-ball after tying the game, though. First, a Sam Sessoms fadeaway wouldn’t fall. On the next possession, Greg Lee‘s contested three didn’t go. Both shots came with plenty of time on the shot clock.

Playing the free-throw game, Rutgers took a four-point lead with 17 seconds to go. Sessoms launched a three that pulled PSU back within one, and the Lions got a steal on the ensuing inbounds play, but could only manage a last-ditch heave that missed everything.

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Rutgers, which at one point was shooting 60 percent from the field in the second half, made only three field goals in the final 10 minutes — and zero in the final 5:35.

“We did a good job of guarding those guys one-on-one and making them take tough shots,” Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry said. “We also quit turning the ball over and didn’t give them transition.”

Still, as has often been the case this season, the end-of-game coin flip did not shake out in Penn State’s favor.

“I guess the common denominator is using putting ourselves in the hole a lot of those times instead of playing from ahead or playing even,” Shrewsberry said. “We were putting ourselves in the hole too many times, and now we’d have to fight back and use up all of our energy to fight back.”

Penn State’s Deep Ball Doldrums

Penn State entered Sunday’s contest with one win this season when it converts at under a 30 percent clip from 3-point range.

For most of the game, it seemed like PSU wouldn’t even come close to that threshold.

The Nittany Lions went 1-12 from deep in the first half, and did not make their second triple until their 17th attempt with 10:50 left in the game.

There was little noticeable difference in the quality of the looks the Nittany Lions carved out from distance. Dallion Johnson, Myles Dread and Lundy all benefitted from plenty of opportunities they would normally cash in.

Shrewsberry said postgame that his team seemed rushed in the first half, before finally settling down in the second.

“We knew this was gonna be a charged-up atmosphere and we played to that early on,” he said. “We didn’t settle down — we needed to settle early. And we got good looks, but I felt like they were rushed in the first half. We got clean looks in the second half.”

In blitzing Rutgers in the final 10 minutes, Penn State did rely heavily on the three-ball. It made five of its 12 triples in the second half, but ultimately connected on only six of its 24 attempts in the game — nowhere near that 30 percent landmark.

A Longer Road Ahead

Penn State seemed poised to avoid the first round of the Big Ten Tournament for much of the season, only falling into the bottom four in the conference standings earlier this week with a tight road loss at Illinois.

With the loss, the Nittany Lions saw their fate sealed.

The 11th seed heading to Indianapolis next week, Penn State will be playing in the first round on Wednesday against Nebraska or Minnesota, depending on the outcome of some games Sunday afternoon.