Three takeaways from Penn State men’s basketball’s weekend at the Emerald Coast Classic
Penn State men’s basketball traveled to Niceville, Florida, over the weekend to participate in the Emerald Coast Classic along with the LSU Tigers, the Oregon State Beavers and the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. The Nittany Lions went 1-1 on the trip, falling to the Tigers Friday night in overtime, 68-63, and defeating the Beavers Saturday afternoon, 60-45.
The split of the two games moved the program to 4-2 under first-year head coach Micah Shrewsberry.
Here are three takeaways from the weekend of action for the program.
1. The Nittany Lions will be competitive this season
Much has been said about just how much Penn State will be able to compete under Shrewsberry in his first year as the team’s head coach, especially within the conference. Both games — and especially the game against LSU — showed that should not be an issue. There may be games where the Nittany Lions don’t show up or an opponent gets hot, but for the most part they should be able to hang with most of their opponents this year.
They slowed an LSU offense that ranks No. 27 in the country in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency, which measures how many points a team would score per 100 possessions, and forced the Tigers into overtime. Only two teams in the Big Ten rank higher than LSU does in KenPom’s ratings and few can present the size and athleticism difficulties the Nittany Lions dealt with Friday night. That game may have ended in a loss, but it proved Penn State should be able to hang with almost any team it plays this season.
2. The team’s defense can carry it in games
The Penn State offense has proven it can lead the way this season in the team’s win over Cornell when it had to keep pace with another high-powered offense but Friday and Saturday it was the team’s success on the other end of the court that dictated how the team played. Friday’s loss to LSU included poor shooting performances aplenty for the Nittany Lions but the team’s efforts on defense and its ability to stifle the Tigers helped force overtime.
Saturday the group was even better, preventing the Beavers from getting easy shots and making life difficult any time they tried to get a look around the rim. The defensive effort was even more impressive considering the team’s effort the night before in a game that went to overtime. The Nittany Lions now have games under their belt where they’ve won with defense along with the offensive ability they showed earlier this season.
3. Jalen Pickett turned a corner
Senior guard Jalen Pickett struggled to make shots from the floor in his first four games as a Nittany Lion, and especially from three-point range where he made only two of his 15 attempts. However, he said following the fourth game — an 85-74 win over Cornell — that making eight free throws helped him get off the schneid. His assertion came to fruition over the weekend against LSU and Oregon State. He attempted 16 shots from beyond the arc in the two games and made eight of them, carrying the load offensively at times for the Nittany Lions and finding open teammates as a distributor.
Pickett carried heavy expectations after showing what he could do in the first three years of his career at Siena, and the weekend was a good glimpse into how successful he could be as the team’s primary option.
