Picking poison, Penn State croaks at No. 1 Purdue, 80-60

Penn State had just been torched in its upset bid at Purdue. Falling 80-60 to the No. 1-ranked Boilermakers, the Nittany Lions’ shots didn’t fall and, despite a competitive halftime score, an offensive barrage from the hosts left Penn State looking helpless.

And Zach Edey had very little to do with it. 

Limiting the likely All-American to 18 points and 13 rebounds, with just nine shots, Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry’s decision to go big almost paid off. Were it not for Purdue sixth-man Mason Gillis, that might have been true, anyway.

Scoring a career-high 29 points for Purdue, including a record nine made 3-pointers at Mackey Arena, Gillis was the Boilermakers’ answer to Penn State’s answer.

“I mean, you gotta do something,” Shrewsberry told Penn State’s radio broadcast team. “Doing the same thing over and over is insanity, right? It would have been insane for us to guard Zach the same way we did. He’s the National Player of the Year. We limited his touches, but we didn’t do a good job of getting out to the right guys.”

Wednesday evening, Gillis hammered home that point repeatedly. 

Coming off the bench for 25 minutes, Gillis was a one-man wrecking ball for the Boilermakers. His 9-of-12 shooting from deep was the counter to Penn State’s collapsing coverage in the paint on Edey. 

Shrewsberry threw nearly every player at the 7-foot-4 big man, spreading out minutes and fouls accordingly. As such, Edey knocked home seven shots from the floor plus another four free throws. 

Meanwhile, Gillis knocked out the Nittany Lions early in the second half in what had, to that point, been a manageable deficit for the visitors. 

Cutting the score to 35-31 out of the locker room, Jalen Pickett’s layup was quickly negated by a Gillis 3 on the other end. Just 31 seconds later, Gillis did it again. Then again 41 seconds after that.

By the time Gillis pulled up for a 15-footer with 17:19 to play, a Penn State timeout interspersed within the run, he managed a single-handed 11-0 run for the Boilermakers and a TKO from which the Nittany Lions would never recover. 

“We’re starting to see different coverages, and he wasn’t the guy that they wanted to leave open, but he just happened to be that guy and kept being open,” said Purdue head coach Matt Painter to the BTN crew. “He stepped up and knocked them down. Just a great night for him. I’m glad I started him in the second half because man, he got it going.”

A decision Shrewsberry acknowledged needed to be made when planning out how to defend Purdue, Gillis’ bludgeoning might not have been expected. A career 39.3 percent shooter from deep, the third-year player hadn’t exceeded 87 3-point attempts in a season and connected on 41.4 percent of them last year.

Still, Shrewsberry acknowledged that the nature of Purdue’s talented, well-rounded lineup, and Gillis’ shooting prowess, made the performance a possibility.

“We weren’t crisp in our rotations with who we rotated to. But that’s part of their team,” Shrewsberry said. “They put you in a bind because they have the National Player of the Year in the post. And then they put surround him with four guys that can shoot. Or, three guys that can shoot, and then Ethan Morton, the ultimate glue guy, who also made two threes. It’s hard to do and you hope at their place that they miss some more, but tonight was their night.”

Conversely, it wasn’t Penn State’s in the program’s latest bid to topple a No. 1-ranked opponent. Falling to 0-14 all-time on the occasion, Seth Lundy’s 18 points led the way, with Mikey Henn contributing 11 in his second consecutive start. Jalen Pickett managed 12 points on 5-of-11 shooting but was held off the free-throw line once again. 

Despite 11 made 3-pointers on 29 attempts, though, Penn State’s shooting struggles from deep outside of the Bryce Jordan Center remained, particularly for transfer wing Andrew Funk. Connecting on just 1-of-9 shots, an uncontested layup, Funk missed all six of his 3-point attempts in 30 minutes.

Penn State returns to action Sunday when the Nittany Lions travel to face Nebraska. Tip-off is set for 4:30 p.m. and the game will be broadcast by the BTN.