Penn State stymied by Texas' Dylan Disu in season-best performance

The attack on Penn State’s interior was unrelenting Saturday night. The Nittany Lions were locked in a grind-it-out battle with 2-seed Texas in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, and the pressure wasn’t going away.

A departure from what’d been expected, though, the Longhorns’ guards were not creating the issues. Rather, 6-foot-9, 225-pound forward Dylan Disu spent 31 minutes tormenting Penn State. 

Connecting on 14-of-20 shots, Disu set a Texas record for field goals made in an NCAA Tournament game. In the process, he propelled the Longhorns to a 71-66 win, ending Penn State’s season and unprecedented run of success.

And in the aftermath, more than half an hour after the loss, the Nittany Lions were still shocked by the performance.

“Texas is a really good team. I don’t know who the best team we played all year is, but I do know that we’ve never played against a big man with that type of touch,” said Penn State senior forward Seth Lundy. “I don’t remember him missing not one floater.”

Penn State bounces back

While technically untrue, Lundy’s recollection was likely tinted by Disu’s particularly dominating sequence to lift the Longhorns in crunch time. 

But first, Penn State had to overcome an 8-point deficit at the half that grew to 11 early out of the locker room, largely as a result of Disu’s efforts. Good for 16 points in the game’s first 23 minutes, the big man lifted the Longhorns to a 39-28 advantage with 17:32 to play. 

With Penn State’s 3-point shooting stagnant, but finally waking up in the second half, a pair of Andrew Funk makes from beyond the arc helped whittle the game back to two possessions. Gradually grinding away Texas’ lead with Disu held off the scoreboard for 10 minutes in the middle of the second half, Penn State finally closed the gap, taking a 58-55 lead on the back of a 10-0 run and forcing the Longhorns into a timeout.

“I told our guys at that moment that it wasn’t a moment to celebrate, because I had just been waiting for that. We believe so much in each other, that’s where we were supposed to be,” Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry said. “So I wasn’t surprised. We’ve been down before and these guys come back every single time. They fight every single time.”

Dylan Disu late-game dagger

Texas’ timeout worked, though, and Disu was at the heart of the Longhorns’ response. Immediately scoring out of the break at the bucket, Disu again became unstoppable, scoring at the basket, late in the shot clock, and most impressively, on a turnaround jumper with 2:42 to play. 

All in succession, the three straight baskets for Disu converted Penn State’s 3-point advantage into a 3-point deficit in a matter of 1 minute, and 50 seconds. 

“He would do it from 10 feet, 15 feet, 5 feet. He made it every single time, and you know with his height and his length and athleticism as guards, and we play small, it was hard to contest it,” said Lundy. “Even when we did come up and contest it, it was hard to contest it. But, give credit to them.”

Scoring 8 of Texas’ 10 points in a 10-0 run spanning four minutes, Penn State only steadied itself with a Cam Wynter layup with 41 seconds to play. By that point scrambling for stops to try to get it back to a one-possession game, Disu again broke the Lions’ backs with his 28th point with 34 seconds remaining. 

A season-high in scoring and just the fourth double-double of the season, Disu’s effort finished off a Penn State comeback that Shrewsberry said he hadn’t been surprised to see.

“We just couldn’t finish it,” Shrewsberry said. “We couldn’t close it and they went on that last kick, that finishing run where we had some open shots and missed them and they hit some tough shots. I wasn’t surprised at all. I knew that’s right where we would be when the time called for it.”