Offensive slump dooms Penn State men’s basketball in loss to Michigan
Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry had voiced his frustrations frequently throughout his men’s basketball team’s 58-57 loss to the Michigan Wolverines Tuesday night.
So when Michigan head coach Juwan Howard, someone Shrewsberry has built a relationship with over the years they both coached in the NBA and college, voiced his own near the end of the game, the Penn State head coach had some friendly advice.
“It was just funny,” Shrewsberry said with a smile. “He was complaining about a foul call and I had been complaining all night. So I just told him, ‘Hey, they’re not gonna call it,’ and he laughed.”
The lack of foul calling had an impact on Penn State’s offense in the game, but the team’s inability to score over the game’s final 23 minutes and 55 seconds doomed it in the loss.
The Lions’ offense wasn’t bad throughout the game, however. In fact, it started 15-of-22 from the field, pushing the team out to 34-23 lead with 3:55 on the clock in the first half. They were making open shots and getting the opportunities they wanted and it resulted in a productive stretch.
“In the first half, we allowed their shooters to get open looks,” Howard said. “Too many paint touches. They scored 18 points in the paint, they also shot the ball extremely well from the outside.”
That minute mark in the game, with 3:55 on the clock, was the turning point as Shrewsberry went with a lineup that featured three players who don’t play major minutes in Jaheam Cornwall, Jevonnie Scott and Caleb Dorsey. The trio didn’t doom the team, but their lack of experience contributed to Michigan’s 11-0 run to end the half.
The Penn State head coach said he trusted those players, and wouldn’t have put them out there if he didn’t, but added that he may have made a “rookie mistake” with seniors Myles Dread, Sam Sessoms and John Harrar, who he removed because they were tired.
“That’s probably a rookie mistake,” Shrewsberry said. “I should’ve called a timeout and let them rest there and then finished the half the right way. That was a really important stretch for us. ... But I also believe in those guys, too. All those guys, they work hard every single day in practice.”
Despite the run, the Lions were still in the game with an entire half left to play and the scored tied at 34. The team’s offense was unable to recover from that spurt, making only seven of its final 33 field goal attempts beginning at the under-four media timeout in the first half.
The shots the team took after that point weren’t necessarily different from the ones it took in the first half, they just didn’t go in.
“It just came back to us making shots and making the right plays,” Sessoms said. “I told a couple guys after the game we gotta make the shots. We’re getting to the shots, (senior guard Jalen Pickett) missed a couple of the shots he makes. We both missed a ton of shots we usually make. We was missing open threes, and they were open. I wouldn’t really say it was much of (Michigan). It’s just, some days you have that type of night. It was just unfortunate that it was a couple of us.”
The poor offensive stretch allowed Michigan to keep the Nittany Lions at arm’s length for most of the second half on its way to victory.
Pickett and Sessoms, the team’s two best ball handlers and the players most frequently relied upon to get to the rim, struggled from the field. They finished the game 11-of-33 from the field and Sessoms was frustrated enough with his performance that he went back out on the court after the game to work on his scoring after trying to work through the slump during the game.
“S---, I was 5-for-17, I kept shooting,” Sessoms said. “It was there. We’re so confident. We work on it every day. And Shrewsberry tells us to shoot that, our teammates tell us to shoot that shot because they know the tables always turn. It was just that type of night.”
The offensive struggles Tuesday night weren’t dissimilar from the ones the team faced in its 51-49 loss to Wisconsin on the road Saturday night in Madison.
The Lions got the shots they wanted, but weren’t able to consistently make them and it put the team in a drought it was unable to overcome despite resulting in a close game. Right now those offensive struggles are simply a trend for a team that has been good for short stretches this season when it has the ball, but soon enough they may become the theme of a season that still has time to be saved.
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 8:57 AM.
