Penn State wins Big Ten Tournament matchup with Illinois, all but locks up NCAA Tournament bid
Myles Dread let most of the emotion out Sunday. He played his final game in the Bryce Jordan Center, after five years at Penn State, and it drew almost all of it out of him.
But as he sat in the bowels of the United Center four days later after the team’s 79-76 win over Illinois in the Big Ten Tournament in Chicago, there was still a tinge left. There were no tears. But there was a broad smile and a pause in his voice.
Dread and his teammates, led by head coach Micah Shrewsberry, have all but locked up the team’s first NCAA Tournament of his career and the program’s first since 2011.
The fifth-year senior has given his all to the program over his half decade with it. He’s been a cultural force through three head coaches. A steadying presence that keeps everything together no matter how big or small his role is.
That, to him, is everything.
“That’s my job,” Dread said. “I’m one of the older guys on the team. I’ve been here. ... I want to win. It means the world to me that I got guys that respect what I’m saying and my opinion. Sometimes they get annoyed with me, like I do it in practice all the time. But we come out and calls aren’t going our way, shots aren’t falling. ... I come on the court and make sure everybody is staying connected.”
Dread’s presence meant continuity could exist from the previous Pat Chambers-Jim Ferry era of Penn State men’s basketball to this current one with Shrewsberry at the helm.
He knows what the program stands for and is able to push that culture on, despite the moving pieces around him. His role on the court, to take a physical beating in the post on defense and fire open 3-pointers on offense, still matters to this group. But it may not matter as much as what he does away from the court.
What he does there has him on the precipice of doing exactly what he’d hoped when he chose to go to Penn State all those years ago.
“I don’t want to jump the gun,” Dread said. “But this is the reason I came back. I want to play in the NCAA Tournament. Ever since I committed my job was to leave this place better than I found it.”
His teammates can feed off the energy he brings. Whether he’s begging for defensive intensity or bringing the group together after a questionable call, Dread is always at the center.
That was crucial on a night where the emotion was fervent.
There was trash talk between Cam Wynter and Illinois guard Matthew Mayer. There were calls from the officials that drew impassioned responses from the Nittany Lions on the floor and the coaches on the bench. There was a big lead that dwindled late. But there was never a loss of composure.
“We just stuck together as much as we could,” senior guard Andrew Funk said. “We have a veteran group of guys that we’ve closed out a lot of games with, and kind of keeping that emotion at bay when we need to, but then using it to our advantage when we know we can has kind of been like a fine line for us that we’ve done really well with, I think.”
Funk showed some of that emotion, something he isn’t prone to doing. With 1:51 left in the game, he rose up for a 3-pointer and splashed it home to make it 72-60. As it fell through the net, Funk put his hands together and rested his head on them as he trotted back on defense. Time for the Illini to go to sleep.
There’s a confidence to this team that, despite starting the year 5-9 in the Big Ten, clawed its way back to 10-10 in the conference. The players believe in their coach and they believe in each other. It’s apparent on the court and to the man charged with being the face of the program.
Their confidence has pulled them back from the brink to the doorstep of the NCAA Tournament. It no longer seems like a question of “if” but “where” when it comes to the postseason.
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Despite that, Shrewsberry isn’t ready to so quickly turn the page to the next step of the postseason. He wants to relish what he has with his players and that starts Friday night against Northwestern in the quarterfinals.
“We’re smart,” Shrewsberry said. “We’re tough. I love this group. We want to keep playing here. I’m not going to put anything in front of tomorrow’s game. Tomorrow’s game the most important game of our season because it’s our next game. We’re going to play as long as possible, man. I’m having fun. I’m having a lot of fun coaching these guys. I think they’re having a lot of fun playing with each other.“
Shrewsberry may not be ready to celebrate, but nobody would blame him if he did. It took him two years with the program to do something some coaches at the school weren’t able to do across their entire tenure.
He took a group of players that barely knew each other, let alone played with each other, and brought them together for one final run for most of them.
No matter what happens next, or how long he’s at the school, he’ll now have his place in Penn State history.
