STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — For the second time in six weeks, the Michigan State Spartans crushed Penn State Basketball, this time by the score of 80-72 at the Bryce Jordan Center where the final score was much closer than the game was played.
While there’s no shame in losing at the Breslin Center, the 92-61 defeat on January 4th had to be fresh on the minds of the Penn State Basketball team. Yet, the location and six weeks of time passing seemingly made no difference. Penn State (12-13, 6-8) was led by Ace Baldwin and Zach Hicks (15 points each) but Penn State was pretty much never in this game.
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Under Mike Rhoades, Penn State brand has been full court defense, pressing the entire way.
Michigan State found a really simple way around that by simply making long outlet passes immediately when gaining possession. Even on a made basket, the Spartans would immediately fire the ball back into play, not allowing the Nittany Lions to ever set up their patented press.
The box score may have ‘only’ shown 8 first half fast break points, they only turned the ball over four times and were consistently able to get good looks by avoiding that press. They finished with 45 first half points (a rather absurd 1.46 points per possession), shooting a ridiculous 56% from both three and the field.
Hushed House
While the attendance will likely end up being listed somewhere in the 8,000 range (BJC holds just over 15,000 for perspective), the actual attendance was likely far short of that number.
While some of that can be blamed on the Valentine’s Day holiday (if you’re reading this and haven’t given your significant other a gift or card yet, your window is closing soon) or the upcoming student THON event (donate here!) this weekend, even last week coming off two wins vs Iowa, the Bryce Jordan Center is back to the DeChellis or early Chambers (or early Shrewsberry) type crowd.
The students don’t fill the sideline student section seats and despite some curtains being raised (as discussed in this week’s Shots Gotta Fall podcast episode), the loudest the crowd was all game was during the little kid game at the half a youth basketball player missed a shot at the buzzer.
Sure, this team won’t be going to the NCAA Tournament, but they still have six B1G wins, more than most expected at this point in the year. Rhoades’ team deserves more community and student support at this point in the season. Many fans started heading for the exits before the four minute media timeout in the second half.
Eight is Enough
In the classic ‘tale of two halves’ that is the 2023-2024 Penn State Basketball season, the Nittany Lions played much better in the second half. But the first half deficit proved too large a hole to dig out of.
Three separate times Penn State cut the Spartan lead to 8 and each time, Michigan State scored the next time down the court. Credit Penn State for never letting the Spartan lead above for most of the half (16 point lead with 4:30 to go) but it never really felt like the Nittany Lions were going to mount a real comeback. Even a Hicks three coming out of the four minute media timeout and then a quick steal was nothing but false hope, as a rushed Kanye Clary drive to the hoop missed wildly.
Penn State Basketball hits the road to Pinnacle Bank Arena to take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers (17-8, 7-7) at 12:00 pm on Saturday February 17th at 12:00 pm on the Big Ten Network.
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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).
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