Penn State plays best ball after T amidst mounting officiating frustration

Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry had seen enough. 

Trailing Michigan State early in the second half at the Bryce Jordan Center on Tuesday night, the situation had quickly started to spiral. So when the Nittany Lions’ super senior forward John Harrar battled a cluster of Spartans in the paint without drawing a trip to the free-throw line, the dam broke. 

Making his feelings known to official Steve McJunkins on the return trip up the floor, Shrewsberry picked up his first technical foul as the Nittany Lions’ head coach. 

“It was probably them playing a lot better that set me off a little bit,” Shrewsberry said after the game. “I thought our guys were competing. I disagreed with the official and what he called. But at the end of the day, he called the tech. 

“It was over right after that. I went to him and I was like, ‘Hey man, sorry. It is what it is.’ And he said the same exact thing. And we kind of moved on from it. But immediately, Myles (Dread) came over and was like, ‘Hey, we got you, coach. We got you.’”

Penn State’s technical foul build-up

Sixteen minutes of game action later, the Nittany Lions left no doubt of that truth.

Regrouping from the setback, Penn State clawed back to earn a 62-58 win against the No. 19-ranked Spartans. And the Nittany Lions did so overcoming a 14-point second-half deficit sparked shortly after Shrewsberry’s outburst. 

The moment was the culmination of three games worth of frustration leading into Tuesday night’s tip.

Having voiced his frustrations with a series of late-game no-calls in a 76-70 loss at Minnesota on Saturday, Shrewsberry elaborated on the issue at his weekly press availability Monday. Saying that bias wasn’t the issue so much as officials not understanding Penn State’s attacking offensive style, the first-year head coach doubled back to the heart of his frustration.

Leading a team competing vigorously night-by-night, a stretch of three-straight losses decided by a combined nine points left Shrewsberry determined to stick up for his players. 

Having witnessed his team’s hope of a home upset seemingly evaporate, Shrewsberry cautioned his team against pressing. 

“They came out the second half really determined,” Shrewsberry said. “They came out on fire. We weren’t great in terms of closing out and getting to their shooters. They got some offensive rebounds. They’re attacking the rim. They were doing everything right. And we were a little slow out of the gate. 

“So once we got down, we’ve been down before and we’ve come back and we chipped away. But we talk about doing it one possession at a time. There’s no 14-point shot. But everything gets magnified. I think every defensive possession gets magnified, every offensive possession gets magnified.”

How the Nittany Lions responded

Reciprocating the sentiment of having Shrewsberry’s back, Penn State’s lineup of Dread, Sam Sessoms, John Harrar, and Seth Lundy needed less than three minutes to rip off an 11-0 run. Upending what’d grown to a 43-29 deficit with 13:20 left in the game, the bounce-back set up the tightly contested final 10 minutes of action.

Charged with just one turnover and hitting 13-of-22 shots from the floor after the technical, the Nittany Lions earned their first win against a ranked opponent in Shrewsberry’s tenure at Penn State.

“I think we finished with two turnovers in the second half, so I thought we were maximizing the shots that we were going to get. And luck was with us,” Shrewsberry said. “We made some tough shots, we made some timely shots and knocked in our free throws down the stretch.

“We had an older group on the court at the time, and I thought they really responded and really played hard from that moment defensively. And we really locked in in terms of what we need to do,” Shrewsberry said. “I thought our offense got better from that moment on. So, I don’t know, maybe I’m a dummy for waiting this long to get one.”