Five takeaways from Penn State men’s basketball’s 90-65 victory over Loyola Maryland
Penn State men’s basketball took care of business Thursday night, dominating the Loyola Maryland Greyhounds. The Nittany Lions are now 2-0 this season with two convincing wins to open the season.
Here are five takeaways from Thursday’s 90-65 Penn State victory.
Turnovers and fouls spur slow start
Thursday’s game seemed in hand most of the way for the Nittany Lions, but their start didn’t inspire confidence. They struggled with fouls early, repeatedly hacking the Greyhounds to give them a chance to keep the score close. That’s what happened, with Penn State leading 21-19 and only 8:49 left in the first half. Loyola Maryland deserves credit for hanging around despite Penn State making five 3-pointers. But the blame mostly falls with the Nittany Lions for allowing them to stay in it.
The fouls sent the Greyhounds on a run and a few poorly timed turnovers helped them out along the way. That kind of start won’t hurt a team against lower levels of competition, but the Nittany Lions will need to be engaged early on as the season moves along.
Depth is going to be a factor
Penn State teams in the past have had starting lineups that could compete reasonably well with opponents but the second the program had to dip into its bench it was in trouble. Or if the team’s best offensive player came off the court they couldn’t score.
Those don’t seem like they’re going to be issues with this iteration of the Nittany Lions. The team can legitimately go eight deep right now with a lot of confidence and that number could expand to 10 or even 11 as the freshmen on the roster get their legs underneath them.
The latter issue likely won’t happen because the entire rotation is full of capable passers who can move the ball as a group to generate open looks, even if Jalen Pickett heads to the bench. The other part of it here is that Pickett rarely goes to the bench, so even if it is an issue it’ll only be one for a few minutes each game.
Ball movement is going to be a staple ...
That ball movement that allows the offense to succeed with him off the court is also going to be a hallmark of the team this year. There were several possessions Thursday night where the ball would cross halfcourt and wouldn’t touch the ground until after an attempted shot. The Nittany Lions swung it around the perimeter, forcing the Greyhounds to scramble while rotating on defense. Eventually they were caught out of position and someone from Penn State had an open look.
This team is full of players who can attack a close-out to force the defense into rotation like that and make them panic. That’s not only going to cause issues on a possession by possession basis, but it’s also going to cause them to wear down earlier in games because of all of the movement. Now, enough of those looks need to go in to matter, but it doesn’t seem like that will be a problem either.
... but shooting is going to carry this team
Because those looks are going in and they’re going in a lot right now. Penn State is a team full of shooters and ball movers and that is creating open shots time after time and seemingly the whole rotation is good enough to make defenses pay with its shot making. They’re all comfortable firing off the catch but also comfortable passing up an open look for a wide open one.
And while the depth of capable shooters is important, there’s also high end shooting at the top of the rotation. Andrew Funk, Myles Dread and Seth Lundy are all excellent shooters who can get shots off over the top of defenders, on the move and with a sidestep dribble. Those three are all perfect fits with Pickett off the ball and will help carry the load in a major way on offense this year.
Getting Pickett rest early matters
The Nittany Lions relied heavily on Pickett last season and that put a massive workload on his shoulders. The guard played over 40 minutes in games that went to overtime and was seemingly always close to playing the entire game.
That has spurred Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry to make a concerted effort to get him off the floor when he can. That’s possible because of the team’s depth, but Shrewsberry is hopeful it’s still possible when the level of competition picks up. The minutes he’s giving to freshmen early on should put them in a position where they can manage some of what Pickett does as the Nittany Lions move later into the season.
“That was something I wanted to look at,” Shrewsberry said. “... Getting to the point where we’re comfortable where we can still sit him at times in longer stretches. … Trying to get those freshmen some minutes in real time, when the game is still in the balance, I think it’s going to help those guys in the long run to be able to step up. And now maybe they’re taking some of those minutes and Pick doesn’t have to play.”
This story was originally published November 10, 2022 at 9:51 PM.
