Penn State forward Seth Lundy was in tears as Penn State walked off the court, falling 67-65 to Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament Final on Sunday afternoon at the United Center in Chicago. For the likes of Lundy and his teammates the emotional rollercoaster they experienced this week, let alone what Sunday had in store will stick with them for the rest of their lives.
Rewind just four days and Penn State was cautiously optimistic about its NCAA Tournament chances. That optimism the culmination of years of hard work, years of losing and coming up short, years of taking small steps forward. Years. and years. The Nittany Lions would still wait to hear their name called on Sunday with slight anxiety, but there would be reason to hope.
A few days later the Nittany Lions were in the Big Ten Tournament Final. There was no question if Penn State was going to the NCAA Tournament, no worries [knocks on wood] that an unexpected world-changing pandemic would cancel this affair. This is happening, this is absolutely happening. Over the three previous days Penn State had played like a team with nothing to lose, like a team with supreme confidence in what it had become. The Nittany Lions are flawed, streaky and beatable, but a team that believes is a team to fear. And for the better part of the last few weeks, the Nittany Lions had believed, and they reaped the benefits.
Then came Purdue.
In a strange way the Boilermakers are not unlike Penn State. They are a team that works in the paint and kicks out to capable shooters when defenders come crashing to the glass. However in this case where Penn State has Jalen Pickett, Purdue has Zach Edey, a towering human of unreasonable proportions. There’s not all that much you can do to mess with Edey, you just hope he misses.
And he rarely misses.
Penn State did a good job on Sunday giving Purdue its best effort, trailing 35-27 at the half, hanging on just enough to hang around. But the Boilermakers are among the favorites to win the national title for a reason. In turn as Penn State tried to find space among the trees and struggled to slow Edey’s plodding ways, Purdue methodically worked out to 17 point lead with 6:18 to go. Penn State wasn’t in the strictest sense of the idea playing poorly; it just wasn’t playing well enough.
Down by 17 there is something peaceful about that as a player. You can digest the result. It sits with you, no longer a surprise or a bit of bad news about to strike you square in the heart. You can see it coming and that’s okay.
But then Penn State wasn’t down by 17. It was down by less and then even less than that. As Cam Wynter rolled in a stolen ball with six seconds to go it was suddenly a 66-65 game with Purdue stunned and ahead by just one point. It was the sort of comeback sequence you just assumed was going to go wrong eventually. One of the great perks of leading by 17 is that it doesn’t take much going your way to erase a lot of comeback effort. You just sort of assumed that moment was going to come. But Penn State just pressed on and the number got smaller and smaller.
It wasn’t until Edey tipped an inbounds pass with just over three seconds to go and Wynter fumbled with the ball, walked and hung his head in disappointment that Purdue finally could experience those alleged perks of big leads. Surviving just enough. Pickett ended the night with 11 points, Wynter with 14 of his own, Lundy with 19. Meanwhile Edey called it a night behind a robotic 30-point, 13-rebound effort,
It wasn’t until then that Seth Lundy, fouling out not long before, cried. There was no digesting this in the game’s final minutes, no being able to make peace with it over time. Suddenly a blowout had turned into heartbreak. Something you thought you had lost was suddenly within your grasps, only to be taken from you again.
But not long after those tears dried, Lundy and his teammates heard their name called on the NCAA Tournament selection show, and likely cried again. This time far different tears, the defeat just moments earlier no less painful, but somehow so much easier to embrace. And after the week Penn State had, losing one of the biggest games in program history felt like the third most memorable thing to have happened. March is a crazy time indeed.
