Lions run away from the Rock

PSU’s intangibles make up for sluggish night on offense

Jeff Rice

UNIVERSITY PARK — Ed DeChellis liked the way his team guarded the ball, rebounded the ball and passed the ball Friday night in Penn State’s exhibition opener with Slippery Rock.

CDT photo/Christopher Weddle

Penn State’s Talor Battle (12) scored 16 points and had 10 rebounds to lead the Nittany Lions to an 82-51 exhibition win over Slippery Rock on Friday.

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The Nittany Lions’ shooting of the ball left a little to be desired.

Even with a 5-of-24 performance from the 3-point line, Penn State cruised to an 82-51 victory over the Rock, a Division II team that had thrown a scare into Pitt last week with some long-range marksmanship.

Talor Battle led three Nittany Lions in double figures with 16 points and added 10 rebounds. He missed all five of his 3-point tries, however, and two guard Chris Babb, who scored 12 points and added nine boards, was 2-of-9 from deep. Cammeron Woodyard, Penn State’s likeliest sixth man, was 1-of-4.

The errant shooting was DeChellis’ main critique of his team’s performance but one he doesn’t think raised a red flag.

“Those three guys will make some shots,” the coach said. “And that’ll open some things up.”

Penn State didn’t need threes in the opening minutes, sprinting out to a 19-0 lead before a sizable Bryce Jordan Center crowd. The Nittany Lions closed out on Slippery Rock’s perimeter shooters after watching them hoist 46 threes against Pitt and fired out in transition.

“We wanted to come out and take them right out of the game from the get-go,” said Battle, who trotted off the court late in the first half due to the effects of a stomach virus but returned and finished with a team-high 30 minutes played.

DeChellis mixed his freshmen and reserves in liberally in both halves and got consistent effort on defense — and inconsistent shooting — from rookies as well as veterans.

“The younger guys came in and saw the tone we tried to set when we were in there,” said junior forward Andrew Jones, who was 1-of-5 from the field and uncharacteristically missed five of his eight free-throw attempts (the rest of the Nittany Lions were 12-of-15 from the stripe).

Freshman forward Sasa Borovnjak had 10 points and four rebounds in his Penn State debut. Freshman point guard Tim Frazier was 1-of-6 from the field for four points but added five assists.

Michael Evans Jr. led Slippery Rock, coached by former Penn State director of basketball operations Kevin Reynolds, with 20 points and made 5 of 10 3-pointers. The Rock was 10-of-39 from 3-point range but only 6-of-34 on 2-pointers.

Penn State led by as many as 35 points late in the second half and kept the smaller Rock at bay by enjoying a massive 60-37 rebounding advantage.

The Nittany Lions sleepwalked through the first eight minutes of the second half as the Rock cut the 23-point halftime deficit to 17 points. But Andrew Ott (six points, seven rebounds) scored inside, then grabbed a defensive rebound and fed it to Battle, who finished off a one-man fast break with a twisting layup to make it 66-40 with a little over eight minutes remaining.

Penn State opened the scoring on a 15-foot jumper from Jeff Brooks (six points, four rebounds in 17 minutes), who later added a tomahawk dunk in traffic to make it 14-0. Battle’s jam on a breakaway made it 19-0 with just under 15 minutes left in the first half. Cecil Brown put back a miss to give the Rock its first points of the game with 14:34 remaining.

Ten different Nittany Lions scored in the first half, including junior guard Adam Highberger, who missed the majority of last season with a torn ACL. Penn State led by as many as 25 points in the half after a conventional three-point play from Borovnjak.

Penn State opens its regular season at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Bryce Jordan Center against Pennsylvania.