Micah Shrewsberry sounds confident. The way his team plays explains why he feels that way.
Penn State men’s basketball is spending the holidays in Northwest Florida, as part of the four-team Emerald Coast Classic. The Nittany Lions will spend some extra time together, staying several days as opposed to the typical overnight trips for a standard game on the schedule. Along with team bonding, these games often serve as guideposts for how the team will fare in conference competition.
Based on Friday night, Shrewsberry will have his team ready.
The Nittany Lions’ first opponent was LSU, which finished 19-10 and won an NCAA Tournament game last season. The Tigers were 8-point favorites, though entered the locker room at halftime facing a 32-29 deficit. In a game with plenty of crucial possessions, Penn State didn’t flinch, sending the game to overtime at the buzzer after Seth Lundy caught a carom in midair and scored on a put-back with one-tenth of a second left.
Lundy was one of four Nittany Lions to score eight-plus points, with Jalen Pickett (14), Sam Sessoms (13), Myles Dread (13), and Lundy (8) the top scorers for Penn State.
“If you look at this game, how LSU wants to play, if you look at the scores that they’ve had, you look at what they do, we turned this into a Big Ten game. That’s what we do with our defense,” Shrewsberry said after the game on a media call. “If we defend like this, you give yourself a chance every single night, and this is going to be the Big Ten. … So this is great preparation for us.”
To Shrewsberry’s point, the over/under for this game (the expected number of points scored for both teams) was 141.5. If you’re wondering how it’s possible to score a half-point, that’s purely for betting purposes. Even with the extra period, Penn State and LSU scored 10 less points combined than expected.
That’s what Shrewsberry was talking about when he said Penn State turned this into a Big Ten game. In LSU’s first five games, the Tigers scored at least 74 every time out, including 101 in their season opener. Overall, LSU averaged 85.4 points coming into Friday night’s contest. Penn State held LSU to 58 points in regulation, 27 points below the Tigers’ season average.
Pretty darn impressive. You can check out Lundy’s buzzer-beater and the team’s game graphic below. We’ve also included our full Q&A exchange with Shrewsberry, so you can see the entire context.
Q: Micah, I ask this question especially within the context that the Big Ten now plays a couple conference games in December: When you have a game like tonight where there are so many crucial possessions, how much does that prepare the guys for the upcoming Big Ten season?
A: “You know what, for us, if you look at this game, how LSU wants to play, if you look at the scores that they’ve had, you look at what they do, we turned this into a Big Ten game. That’s what we do with our defense. If we defend like this, you give yourself a chance every single night, and this is going to be the Big Ten. These are going to be the wars like this in the Big Ten, so this is great preparation for us. Who’s going to go to the glass as hard as these guys? Well, Michigan State will on Dec. 11. We’ve got to get EJ Liddell off the glass but he’s shooting 3s just like (Darius) Days was tonight. So, this was great practice for these early Big Ten games that are coming up. But the effort that we play with, what we did tonight effort-wise, what we did against Cornell the other night, effort-wise, that gives you a chance. That gives you a chance in the Big Ten, and that’s all we’re asking for. We want a chance to compete.”
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