Penn State’s confidence rising after Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal win over Northwestern
With less than a minute left in overtime, Seth Lundy stood with the ball in his hands, with teammate Jalen Pickett posting up feet away. Micah Shrewsberry pointed at Pickett, instructing his senior wing to pass the ball, but Lundy had other plans.
He looked at the clock, dribbled the ball and pulled up from well beyond the arc, sinking the shot that ultimately made the difference and won Penn State the game.
Lundy’s unbridled confidence is a connective thread within the Nittany Lions and pushed them to their 67-65 overtime win over Northwestern Friday night and vaulted them into the Big Ten semifinals.
The senior wing recounted the shot, and wanted to make sure his team got a look up rather than risk giving the ball away.
“Just having confidence in myself,” Lundy said. “I’m in the gym every single day. It’s nothing new for me. I felt like I’ve (been) doing it my whole career. It was a great opportunity. I felt like I was trying to front him anyway and I didn’t want to have a turnover. I felt like getting up a shot was better than nothing. I just iso’d him and that was the outcome.”
Before Lundy spoke, though, there was an admission from his head coach that he it wasn’t what he originally wanted.
“I was (motioning to Pickett),” Shrewsberry said with a laugh. “It was a great audible by his part though.”
Lundy and the Nittany Lions have a reason to be confident. A month ago their season was on the verge of disaster. A should-be NCAA Tournament team was suddenly on a losing streak with no end in sight.
But there was no quit. The group’s confidence persisted and got them out of the rut they were stuck in.
Some of that was having more shots start to fall, and some was a change made to the rotation that has provided a spark. Kanye Clary’s emergence has played as a big a role as any personnel decision the team has made this season.
He’s brought an energetic presence and uses his speed to beat opponents off the dribble, a quality many on the team lack.
The freshman guard has kept his confidence because he’s kept perspective.
“Honestly, I never really get nervous playing basketball,” Clary said. “... It’s basketball. It’s fun. Shooting the ball, scoring, being a team player, doing all the little things. That’s fun to me. So it’s not really pressure.”
It helps, of course, that Clary has the backing of his coach and his teammates. It’s not easy for a freshman to step into a veteran-laden group like the one Penn State has.
Not to mention, it’s not as if Clary was a heralded prospect out of high school. He’s had to earn his keep and has done it by outperforming expectations and believing in the work he’s put in. That’s the case from top to bottom with Penn State’s best contributors.
Shrewsberry took the time to mention graduate assistants Taaj Ridley and Josh Townsend, who spend time in the gym on off days with the Nittany Lions who come in and want to put that extra work in.
“Taaj Ridley and Josh Townsend, they’re in the gym with those guys nonstop,” he said. “Taaj always posts it on Instagram, calls it ‘daily vitamins.’ We’ve got a lot of guys getting their daily vitamins in.”
All of the extra work has led to moments like this. The team’s NCAA Tournament status isn’t even a question at this point, but it has something else it wants to achieve in the meantime.
The Nittany Lions are playing in the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament Saturday and have a chance to be crowned conference champions if they can string together two more victories.
There will be time for them to celebrate what’s coming next in the postseason, but they’re not ready to do that just yet. Shrewsberry just wants to live in what he’s doing. He was asked if he feels like the team can exhale, but made his stance clear.
“We don’t want to,” Shrewsberry said. “Like we’re having fun, like I said. Like it’s fun to go out there every single day with these guys. It’s fun to prepare with them. It’s fun to like just being there eating dinner together at night. We don’t want this thing to end. We never want this thing to end. We want to play as long as possible.”
Thanks to his team’s play over its last eight games, it’s not going to end any time soon.
