Riding defensive strength, Penn State finds formula for success

Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry had good reason for his optimism at the half.

Trailing No. 14-seed Minnesota 28-24 at the break, Penn State’s offensive output had been dismal. Twice notching shooting slumps of 1 of 8 and 1 of 10, respectively, the Nittany Lions kept the score manageable by playing strong defense. 

Recognizing their offensive shortcomings, the program’s formula for success in Shrewsberry’s first season was again manifesting itself. 

“I felt like we played a little bit rushed,” Shrewsberry said. “We prepare for what they do, and then you try and attack it. But sometimes it takes a little bit of time to see if they’ve changed something or to settle into the game. 

“I didn’t feel like we settled into the game in the first half. We were playing pretty fast, we weren’t allowing our screeners to get in the right position. We missed some shots around the rim that we usually make. So we just talked about really slowing down in the second half.”

To a painstaking, grinding degree, Penn State did.

Minnesota went cold from the floor, connecting on just 9 of 28 attempts against a suffocating defensive effort. Concurrently deflating the ball on offense, Penn State took just 22 shots after the break. 

Making the most of them, spurred on by a hot Jalen Pickett, Penn State connected on 13 of them. 

Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry press conference

Turning a six-point deficit into an advantage of 11, the Nittany Lions did as much by dialing in down the stretch.

“If you look at us throughout the season, the last 10 minutes of the game was when we played our best offense,” Shrewsberry said. “You get to that point, and I feel like we know where exactly we’re attacking, what shots we want to get, how they’re guarding us, and we settle into the game. 

“Hopefully our defense can keep us there until we get to that point, and it usually does. I’d love for us to play a lot better early on, but as long as it takes until we start clicking, that’s what we usually do.”

Relying instead on the team’s defensive strength this season, Shrewsberry noted the reality of Penn State’s successes. 

Improving to 13-16 on the year with eight wins against Big Ten competition, playing strong defense has been integral to nearly all of them. Only in Penn State’s 74-70 win at Northwestern included an opponent score in the 70s. 

Rather, holding Indiana to 58, Rutgers to 49, Iowa to 66 (in regulation), Michigan State to 58, Minnesota to 46, Northwestern to 60, and Minnesota to 51, the Nittany Lions have averaged just 57.25 points allowed defensively in Big Ten wins.

Crediting his assistant coaches, Shrewsberry cited the potential of his group when it’s playing its best.

“It’s all about our discipline defensively. You see me lose my mind, or it looks like I’m losing my mind, I know it looks like that a lot, but it’s usually things that we control defensively that we don’t do,” Shrewsberry said. “When we do what we can control, we’re really good defensively. We make people take tough shots. We give them one shot and we go and rebound it. And our guys have done that all season and they just dig in deeper and deeper and as the game goes on, you just keep wearing on people, wearing on people, wearing on people, and hopefully, you’re taking their legs.”

Micah Shrewsberry’s defensive philosophy

Reflecting on a mentality he’d absorbed from coach Brad Stevens at Butler and with the Boston Celtics, Shrewsberry said the approach has carried over effectively to the Nittany Lions this season.

“He used to always say that you just take away what they want to do best. You just squeeze the life out of people. And now the one time they get that open three, they haven’t seen it all game. And it usually doesn’t go in because they’re not getting that shot that they normally get every single time,” he said. “That’s what our guys are doing. They’re just taking away A and making you go to B. Then we’re guarding B as tough as possible and making you go to C. And now you’re not working on C. That’s a shot you’ve never practiced in your life. Now we’re contesting that shot. We’re challenging that shot, we’re hitting people on the glass, and then we’re going down the other end.”

Riding the success of Wednesday night’s first-round effort into a second-round matchup with No. 6-seed Ohio State, the Nittany Lions will be determined to do the same again.

Tip is set for roughly 9 p.m. in a game that will air on the Big Ten Network.