Penn State men’s basketball earns second home win of the season over St. Francis Brooklyn, 74-59
Penn State men’s basketball recovered from its Monday loss to Massachusetts by earning a home victory over the St. Francis Brooklyn Terriers Thursday night at the Bryce Jordan Center. The Nittany Lions won the game, 74-59.
The Nittany Lions and the Terriers played close in the early portion of the game in large part because of Penn State’s struggles around the rim. St. Francis Brooklyn was packing its defense in close and making any shots in that area difficult.
Not to mention Penn State was turning the ball over early on and giving the Terriers extra opportunities to score. That began to change near the midpoint of the first half when senior guard Sam Sessoms Jr. took control of the offense for the Nittany Lions. He scored all 16 of his first-half points in the last nine minutes before halftime and scored all but five of the team’s points in that span.
He was aided by junior Seth Lundy’s nine points and senior Jelanni White’s six points in the game’s first 20 minutes.
The Nittany Lions struggled to open the second half, allowing the Terriers to close in and shrink the team’s 13-point lead that was well on its way to growing prior to the start of the half. The momentum flip coincided with some made shots by St. Francis Brooklyn and led to Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry subbing out four of the five players on the court to try to spur his team.
The decision paid off with the Nittany Lions regaining their momentum from there. They never relinquished their lead and were successfully able to break the St. Francis Brooklyn trap to get some easy offense, something they struggled with Monday night against Massachusetts.
Penn State was able to close out the game and move to 2-1 on the season with the victory over the Terriers.
Player of the game
Senior guard Sam Sessoms Jr.: Sessoms ignited the Nittany Lion offense in the first half and helped the team pull away from the Terriers. His 26 points led the team with 16 of them coming in the game’s first 20 minutes. There weren’t any St. Francis Brooklyn players who could guard him and he was able to get to the rim whenever he wanted. He used his quickness to get in front of defenders and his craft to finish once he got to the rim.
His scoring cooled off in the second half, but his first half output gave the Nittany Lions the cushion it needed to earn the victory Thursday night.
Turning point
Shrewsberry subs out four key players: The Nittany Lions had stalled out to open the second half and needed a jolt on both ends of the court. Shrewsberry made the decision to pull four of the team’s key contributors in Sessoms, Lundy, Myles Dread and Jalen Pickett in favor of White, Caleb Dorsey, Jaheam Cornwall and Dallion Johnson. The decision to make the nearly-full swap around John Harrar paid off with the Nittany Lions playing more engaged on both ends of the court.
Quotable
Micah Shrewsberry on the decision to pull four players off the court at once:
“We talked about this after the UMass game. I don’t know how many teams there are in the country. I think it’s 351, around there. We’re 325th in three-point defense. A lot of those things we’re trying to fix are positioning wise, like changing where we are, getting through screens better, being there on the catch.”
“They start the second half, we were very comfortable defensively, then they started getting comfortable offensively and making threes. The one thing that I told those guys in the timeout and I told them after the game, we’re gonna play to a standard. I don’t care what the score is, I don’t care who we’re playing, I don’t care who’s in the game, the game needs to be played the right way. Those guys weren’t playing the right way. So we found five guys that were gonna go in there and play it the right way.”
Up next
vs. Cornell: Penn State will try to continue its undefeated start at home Monday when it takes on the Cornell Big Red. The Big Red are currently 3-0 with wins over Binghamton, Lafayette and Colgate. Penn State is projected to win by roughly 15 points according to Ken Pomeroy’s KenPom rankings.
The Nittany Lions would move to 3-0 at home with a win against Cornell and 3-1 overall on the season.
