Lions battle, fall short of Boilers in OT
An all-out effort against the nation's No. 14-ranked team wasn't enough at the Bryce Jordan Center Tuesday night for the Nittany Lions, leading throughout but ultimately falling 74-70 to the visiting Boilermakers.
Penn State head coach Patrick Chambers wanted his Nittany Lions to hit the reset button during their off weekend following a blowout loss at Nebraska last Tuesday.
Hosting the No. 14-ranked Boilermakers, they did.
Led by 21 points from true freshman Tony Carr, plus another 18 from Lamar Stevens, the Nittany Lions put on one of their best performances of the season. The hosts out-rebounded one of the league's biggest and best, forced 17 turnovers to go along with 12 steals, and finished with 10 blocks in the overtime contest.
The issue?
Upon the final buzzer, the Nittany Lions were on the wrong end of a 74-70 decision in front of 7,505 fans at the Bryce Jordan Center.
"Our kids competed," an exhausted Chambers told the media after the game. "This last couple of days working in practice, getting better, working on habits, we competed. That's as hard as we've played all year. We were tough, we were physical, I'm proud of my team. I'm really proud of my team."
He wasn't finished.
In a game that witnessed transformative performances from Carr and Stevens in the game's biggest moments, Carr responsible for 12 of the Lions' final 16 points in regulation in overcoming an eight point deficit down the stretch, the Lions failed in the most crucial of categories: the win-loss column.
"There's no more moral victories here. We gotta get some things done. We gotta close out games, we gotta get rebounds, we gotta get stops," said Chambers. "We made some crucial mistakes at very difficult times to let (guard Ryan) Cline off because you know that's his job to make threes."
Tying the game on a Carr bucket with 13 seconds left to play in regulation, a tough Penn State defensive stand forced overtime and eventually a 2-point Nittany Lion lead on a pair of Stevens jumpers in the face of outstanding Purdue big Caleb Swanigan. Locked at 68, the tie wouldn't last, though.
On successive plays, the sharpshooting Cline buried 3-pointers, the second coming off a Stevens charge and turnover to give the Boilers back the ball with a 1-point lead and 75 seconds left to play.
Getting loose in the corner, Cline knocked down another, providing the 4-point advantage the Boilermakers would ultimately ride out to secure the win.
In a game that saw Penn State redshirt freshman Mike Watkins battle for 13 points and 11 rebounds, holding likely Big Ten Player of the Year Swanigan to just 10 points and nine boards, Chambers lamented the missed opportunity.
"I thought our bigs did a wonder, fantastic job against their bigs. We were right there. It was our game," said Chambers. "You go up two in the overtime and we turned the ball over. I felt like Penn State beat Penn State in a couple situations there. We'll learn from it."
A dearth of 3-point shooting similarly doomed the Nittany Lions beyond the rare-but-devastating defensive lapses.
Combining to shoot just 2 of 18 from deep as a team, the Lions' shortcoming contrast sharply against Purdue's eventual 12 of 26 mark from beyond-the-arc, especially in the game's most critical moments. Said Chambers, "We gotta make shots. I thought we had really good shots. Our three-point shooters, they had good, open looks. They didn't go down tonight. We gotta get back to the gym and we gotta keep shooting."
The Nittany Lions (14-14 overall, 6-9 B1G) return to action Saturday when they travel to Minnesota (3 p.m., BTN).