Despite lack of wins, Penn State women’s basketball shows it’s building a base for the future
Siyeh Frazier walked off the court at the Bryce Jordan Center one final time Thursday, after the Lady Lions concluded singing the alma mater.
Fraizer’s career in the BJC was over, and it ended with the 13th straight loss for Penn State as the Lady Lions fell 80-66 to Michigan.
With just one regular season game remaining, Penn State fell to 7-21 this season, including a bottom-of-the-Big Ten 1-16 conference record.
But Frazier left the court, with a new career high in points — 28 — and knowing that the work she is doing now is building a foundation for the new era of the program under first-year head coach Carolyn Kieger.
“We have to keep chipping away, we have to keep getting better,” Kieger said. “We have to learn how to play 40 minutes as hard as we can. I thought it was a huge difference from the first time we played them at their place, and we can tell that our team is getting better.”
The 14-point defeat to the Wolverines was much better than the 34-point pounding the Lady Lion received in Ann Arbor on New Year’s Eve.
But that being said, the final home game of the year for Penn State represented a season full of challenges.
Penn State started the game slowly and then bounced back in a big way in the second quarter, forcing 15 turnovers to make it a one-possession game at the half.
But once again, the Lady Lions fell apart in the third quarter.
The Wolverines outscored Penn State by 12 in the third frame to take a commanding 15 point lead into the final frame.
The lead was too much for the Lady Lions to overcome.
Penn State has now lost 13 straight games, a stretch that has shown just how difficult a rebuilding process can be and how much work Kieger has to do to return the Penn State program to being a consistent player in the NCAA Tournament.
“I’ve been a part of two rebuilds now. One as an assistant and one as a head coach, and the first year is always a lot of learning, a lot of teaching,” Kieger said. “The first year is always tough but it’s always memorable because this is the start. And you always look back to the start and you always remember where you came from, and you never get too big and the highs can’t get too high and the lows can’t be too low.”
Penn State has not won a game since Jan. 9 and is averaging nine points less than its opponents per game this season.
But according to Kieger, this is one of the most important parts of a rebuild.
“You find out more about yourself in tough moments and you find more about your players when you are losing than when you are winning,” Kieger said. “Hopefully in next year and the years after that when we are winning 20 ballgames a year and we are looking at each other and it’s easy, and you are winning by 20, and you are winning by 15; well of course that’s easy. But when your real character comes out is when you are in the grind.”
Penn State certainly has experienced its fair share of the “grind” this season.
Even with one regular season game left to play, Penn State’s lone Big Ten win is a program-worst since Penn State started its women’s basketball program in 1965.
But this is only driving Kieger to get better.
“You figure out what you are made of,” Kieger said. “You figure out what you’re made off as a coach, you figure out what you are made of as a team and who is with you, and I think those are the things that you remember as your first year of a rebuild.”
Penn State has shown flashes this season of being a program that can contend with the very best. In a home game against now-No. 7 Maryland, the Lady Lions played a very competitive first half, before falling apart in the third quarter.
On Thursday night against Michigan, Penn State even took the lead in the third quarter but couldn’t hold on.
The Lady Lions aren’t getting the results, but Kieger knows that this is all a part of the process of building and instilling the culture she wants at Penn State.
“We don’t have the wins we want but I can tell that we are chipping away, and that is part of changing the culture and part of growing day by day,” Kieger said. “It’s patience, and that’s hard as athletes and as coaches.
“We will keep at it and trying to do everything we can to take this program back where it needs to be.”
