Saturday, February 6, 2010

GOPHERS RIP OUT LIONS' HEART

Do they give out 1/2 wins? Penn State raises the bar yet again for most heartbreaking defeat with a last second loss at home to Minnesota. While the buzzer-beater by Lawrence Westbrook is what people will remember from this game, there were a few other noteworthy occurrences that could help the Lions get that elusive first win somewhere down the road.

Something that Penn State should be looking to repeat in almost every game it plays is the up-tempo style that dominated much of the first half of its contest. With guys like Talor Battle, Tim Frazier and Chris Babb, pushing the ball and playing a 94-foot game is beneficial - especially when the team isn't shooting particularly well (40.4% vs Minn.). Secondly, the Lions finally got some productive minutes from Frazier in the second half, who showed he is maturing quickly enough to be a solid contributor on this team for forty minutes.

The Lions continue to struggle at the foul line and from behind the three-point arc, but continued to show improvement in attacking the basket - even if it didn't always lead to a positive result. The area that has plagued the Lions the most and struck again on Saturday was the lack of tough defense. Penn State got beat to too many loose balls and surrendered too many open looks. On the other end, the athleticism of Bill Edwards was missed, but the frontcourt has to provide more offense than it did against the Gophers. David Jackson poured in 18, but 14 of them were from the foul line or came on three-point field goals. Thirty-nine of the other 46 points came from the guards.

It's probably good that the Lions have a week off after this win. Some might say that it's too much time to digest such a heartbreaking loss, but maybe the best thing for this team is get away from the court for a couple of days and put this ugly losing streak behind them. Michigan State is up next, a team that tends to bring out a strong effort against Penn State. Much like the football team, this squad needs something to hang its hat on this season - and a win against Tom Izzo would certainly provide that. It was refreshing to see the Lions play well in the last couple minutes of Saturday's game, it will be even better to see them in the win column.

1 comment:

Karen Jesaitis said...

I still have faith in 3 Big Ten wins this season. However, we've been so close in so many games and still have nothing to show for it. I can seriously see us losing out. But winning the Big Ten tournament. A couple shots falling here and there, and tighten up the defense a little bit, and anything's possible. Here's to the revived FLOATING LION!