Penn State Basketball Survives Scare vs. Fairfield in Season Opener | What We Learned
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — There was nothing pretty about the season opener for the Penn State Basketball, but the Nittany Lions survived a real scare from the Fairfield Stags, pulling away at the end to win 76-68.
Despite opening as 15-point favorites, the Stags opened the game on a 15-2 run, stunning the probably less than five thousand at the Bryce Jordan Center. Penn State slowly chipped away until it was 37 almost at the half.
The Stags continued to play hard, pushing their lead back to 7 late in the second half, before a 16-2 half to end the game, led by a Dominick Steward personal 5-0 run and late buckets by Melih Tunca and Kayden Mingo.
Some suffocating defense helped force Fairfield into some bad shots from deep and finally making some free throws (PSU finished just 15-25) helped seal the game.
How Penn State Basketball Pulled Off the Win
Tunca led the Nittany Lions with 19 points, 4 rebounds and 6 assists, and the highest ranked recruit in school history Kayden Mingo added 15 points and 5 rebounds, both in their first collegiate basketball game.
“The pace was different from European basketball,” Tunca said, after the game. “But I adjusted pretty quick and this is the basketball I like to play. It was for sure different but basketball is basketball and it was really really fun being out there.”
When asked about what Head Coach Mike Rhoades said about the uneven performance, Mingo stated, “We really stuck together throughout the game, that’s what coach really talked about…getting stops and rebounds. He was really happy we stayed together and we were tough as a young group ”
Penn State struggled shooting all game, finishing 27.8% (5-18) from three and 60% (15-25) from the free throw line.
“We got a lot of good shooters,” Mingo explained. “Today we didn’t shoot too tell and we’ll get back to the gym and adjust our shots.”
In the game’s biggest moments, the Nittany Lions seemed to feed off the home crowd, late.
“The students gave us a lot of energy down the stretch,” Penn State head coach Mike Rhoades said. “I hope they keep coming on these guys will play hard for them. We have a lot of work to do…but no one was panicking or blaming each other in the huddle. I think we’ll score points but we gotta learn to play defense…and got some clutch rebounds late.”
Penn State did win the rebounding battle 39-38 but trailed most of the game.
“I told them if we dont rebounds were not gonna win the game,” Rhoades said. “It doesn’t matter how much we shoot. It’s really hard and its only going to get harder with the teams we play. Everyone needs to rebound, our wings didn’t rebound as well as they need to.
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Rhoades went on to rave about his new young background in Mingo and Tunca.
“Mingo is a rock on and off the court,” Rhoades explained. “They can handle the ball they can shoot it they can get to the rim and finish shots, they have moxie and are only gonna get better. They are very coachable.”
Penn State travels to New Haven on Saturday at 1:00 pm.
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NittanyCentral is his second reporting job following the Men's Basketball program. He co-founded and co-hosts the Shots Gotta Fall - The Penn State Basketball Podcast (the premiere, the best, the only) with Steve Travis.
Smith's most proud moment covering the team was seeing the national No. 9 ranking during Pat Chambers' last year. His most embarrassing moment was spending almost a thousand dollars to travel 2,000 miles in 46 hours to watch the Nittany Lions lose to Temple in the 2011 NCAA Tournament (screw you Juan Fernandez).