On Tuesday, Jan. 16, it was one of the coolest scenes that Penn State basketball has seen in a while. The court was stormed, full of students, alumni and locals who were in attendance to see the Nittany Lions upset Wisconsin, who was ranked eighth at the time.
[autotag]Mike Rhoades[/autotag] was hoping this win would give them some momentum the rest of the season.
That was not the case when Penn State traveled to Columbus on Saturday to face Ohio State.
Classifying the beginning of the game as a sleepy start by the Nittany Lions would be kind. They went over seven minutes without scoring a point and trailed 16-0 before [autotag]Jameel Brown[/autotag] banked in a three-pointer.
Getting into that big of a hole is hard to overcome in Big Ten play and that’s what ultimately did Penn State in as the Nittany Lions fell to the Buckeyes by a final score of 79-67.
They spent the majority of the first half trailing by double digits before entering the locker room down 33-19 at halftime.
That was the same case during the second period as Penn State could never cut into the deficit and trailed by 21 points with 12:23 remaining in the game.
The Nittany Lions began to make a run at things, going on a tear with under four minutes to go that cut Ohio State’s lead to nine points with 1:38 left to go.
However, it was too little too late as Penn State dropped a fifth game in conference play, not being able to piece together back-to-back solid performances against a team that entered Saturday on a three-game losing streak.
They finished the game shooting 37.1% overall from the field but were 32.6% shooting two-point shots. Penn State’s three-point shooting was really the only thing that kept them in the game after they made 11 threes and shot 45.8%.
Playing away from home continues to plague the Nittany Lions as they move to 0-4 in true away games.
The good news for them is they head back to the Bryce Jordan Center for a game against Minnesota next Saturday.