Penn State basketball throttled by Michigan State
For those who weren’t able to watch Penn State take on Michigan State in basketball because it was solely on Peacock Thursday night, it was a struggle from the get go.
The broadcast kept mentioning how this was Mike Rhoades’ first time visiting Michigan State’s arena and it looked like his team was feeling the pressure of playing in that big time atmosphere.
They had three turnovers in the first two minutes of the game as the Spartans got out to an early 6-0 lead.
That would turn to be the story of the game for the Nittany Lions as they had a hard time generating offense and gave away tons of possessions and easy buckets.
Before the first TV timeout, Michigan State had jumped to a seven point lead and it turned to double digits about six minutes into the game.
Nothing went right for Penn State in the first half as they trailed by 25 with over five minutes remaining before the break. Michigan State was draining everything they looked at and the Nittany Lions could not keep up.
Ultimately, the score at half was 51-26.
While the second part of the game was an improvement for Penn State, they were still snake bitten by turnovers and missing open shots.
That was one of the main reasons why they could never make a run and close the gap like they did in the second half in their win against Ohio State.
The Nittany Lions primarily played from 20 points down for the remainder of the game after getting off to an early deficit, never establishing any offensive rhythm that they’ve shown the ability to have during the beginning of the season.
When the final buzzer sounded, Penn State lost 92-61 in a complete throttling.
They shot 10.3% from three (3-29) while allowing Michigan State to shoot 47.6% from beyond the arc (10-21). Their 16 turnovers resulted in 24 points for the Spartans.
It was an overall brutal game for the Nittany Lions.
Bright spots from this contest was that Kanye Clary continues to show that he’s becoming a top guard in the Big Ten as a sophomore, scoring 21 points and adding five assists. They also outrebounded the Spartans on the offensive glass, pulling down 14 boards compared to nine.
This game made it clear that Penn State has a long way to go in order to reach the goals Rhoades and his staff have to turn this program into a competitive one in conference.
