Penn State upends No. 13 Virginia Tech, 63-62
Patrick Chambers knew the day would come.
Hosting Virginia Tech Tuesday night as part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, his Nittany Lions welcomed the return of big man Mike Watkins both from injury and a five-game suspension to begin the 2018-19 season. Coming off a stretch of three games with only one win, including a particularly brutal shooting stretch for true freshman guards Myles Dread and Rasir Bolton, the Nittany Lion head coach felt strongly that shots would start to fall.
They just happened to fall for a different freshman.
“What can you say about your freshman, Myreon Jones?” said Chambers. “I told you guys this kid's nickname was ‘Buckets.’ I just knew it was only a matter of time before he'd see the ball go in.”
Topping the No. 13-ranked Hokies in front of 8,373 fans at the Bryce Jordan Center, 63-62, Jones and the Nittany Lions saw exactly that.
‘Led by 18 points on 7 of 11 shooting from the true freshman, the Nittany Lions bounced back from a 37-35 halftime deficit to claw out a gritty, defensive-minded win.
“I was really proud of the way we responded in that second half. We gave up 37 (in the first half). To only give up, to one of the highest scoring teams, 25 (second-half) points, is Penn State basketball,” said Chambers. “We were defending, we were rebounding, we were all over the floor.”
Against one of the nation’s elite shooting teams, having knocked down 51.3 percent of its shots en route to a 5-0 record coming into the game, the Nittany Lions produced one of the best defensive efforts of the Chambers era.
And in fact, the Hokies started on much of the same note.
Led by 12 points off the bench Ty Outlaw and another 11 from junior point guard Justin Robinson, the Hokies knocked down 8 of 13 3-pointers in the first half and 50 percent of their shots from the floor. And though the Nittany Lions bounced back to take a 44-41 lead eight minutes into the second half, a 9-0 run for the Hokies in just two minutes, eight seconds, left the Nittany Lions on their heels.
Penn State head coach Patrick Chambers was unconcerned.
“One possession at a time. That's all we talked about. One possession at a time,” said Chambers. “We knew they're going to go on runs, we're going to go on runs. I didn't see any bad body language in the huddles.
“I saw Lamar (Stevens) really stepping up, talking to everybody, and that's what we needed. We needed our guys to take ownership at that point. We got the stops that we needed and we started to see the ball go through the basket.”
In particular, Jones was the one seeing it most.
Closing the first half with back-to-back buckets, Jones made the most of his sub-in at the 14:13 mark in the second half. In succession, the true freshman out of Birmingham, Ala., hit three treys in a row and a jumper to keep the Nittany Lions within striking distance, 55-52, in a span of just five minutes, 28 seconds.
Producing a 6-0 run of their own, a pair of Stevens free throws bookended by a loose ball layup assisted from John Harrar to Jones, the Nittany Lions finally took a 56-55 lead.
They wouldn’t fully relinquish it, the Hokies knotting the score at 58-58 before a mad scramble final four minutes left the Nittany Lions with the win.
In a back-and-forth that saw both teams turn the ball over a combined six times, and combine to make just 3 of 10 shots, the Nittany Lions grabbed critical rebounds, jumped on loose balls and won the hustle plays that Chambers has built his program around.
“I think it was a total team effort and I'm really proud of our leadership,” said Chambers.
The Nittany Lions (4-2) will open Big Ten play Saturday when they travel to No. 24 Maryland (6-0). Tip-off is set for 5 p.m. and the game will air on the Big Ten Network.