Penn State men’s basketball couldn’t find its offense on the road Sunday afternoon, falling 72-63 to Nebraska as the Nittany Lions failed to pick up a potentially crucial Big Ten victory with just eight games left on the regular season slate. The Nittany Lions are now 14-9 overall and 5-7 in Big Ten play.
Seth Lundy was outstanding throughout the night, scoring 24 points while making eight three-pointers to pace Penn State on the offensive end. Despite the long range output by Lundy, the Nittany Lions struggled to hang with the Cornhuskers in the first half with Nebraska leading by as many 15 in the opening 20 minutes of play before taking a 37-28 lead into the break. The Nittany Lions staged multiple offensive surges in the first half only for Nebraska to respond in kind. All the same the Cornhuskers’s once 15-point margin was just nine at break even as Penn State shot just 35% from the field.
Nebraska was led by Keisei Tominaga who finished the night with 30 points going 12-of-18 from the field in a high volume and high efficiency outing.
In spite of a struggling defensive effort in the paint and cold shooting in the first half Penn State would manage to hang around with Nebraska, constantly within reach of the Cornhuskers despite an inconsistent offensive output. Tominaga opened the second half with a 3-pointer, but Penn State responded with an 11-5 run of its own to narrow the Husker lead to six at 45-39. In spite of the push Penn State couldn’t get enough firepower to overcome the full deficit and would continue to trail heading into the game’s final minutes. Myles Dread and Cam Wynter would go a combined 0-for-9 from beyond the arc while sar point guard Jalen Pickett finished the night with his usual outpoint going for 15 points along with seven assists and seven rebounds. A four-for-eight effort from beyond the arc by Andrew Funk also helped keep the Nittany Lions within reach as the game wore on.
Back-to-back baskets by Pickett cut the lead to within four at 62-58 with 3:21 left on the clock before Nebraska pushed its lead back out to nine points. A three-pointer by Funk would cut that margin back to six with 40 seconds to play at 69-63 but Nebraska’s defense kept the Nittany Lions off the board the rest of the way.
Once again an undersized Penn State steam struggled in the paint getting outscored 32-16 near the basket despite effectively ending the evening tied in the rebounding department 33-32 in favor of Nebraska. Penn State ended the night shooting more than 50% of its shots from beyond the arc while making just 14 of its 38 attempts from deep. Outside of Funk, Pickett and Lundy, no other Nittany Lion scored more than three points. For the Huskers, Tominaga was joined by just Jamarques Lawrence in the double-digit scoring department.
Penn State returns home to the Bryce Jordan Center Wednesday night to host Wisconsin at 8:30 p.m. on the Big Ten Network. The Nittany Lions fell 63-60 in the team’s first meeting earlier this season in Madison.
