Penn State’s winless February continued Saturday afternoon. They lost 68-74 in College Park, Maryland against the Maryland Terrapins.
Freshman guard [autotag]Kanye Clary[/autotag] led the Nittany Lions with 17 points. [autotag]Jalen Pickett[/autotag] added 15 points but failed to hit his season averages with five assists and three rebounds.
Maryland senior guard, [autotag]Hakim Hart[/autotag], led the game with 23 points on 80% shooting from the field. Guard [autotag]Jahmir Young[/autotag] was the games second leading scorer with 18 points.
The road struggles continued for Penn State. They are now 1-7 away from home this season.
Beating Maryland on the road was going to be a tough task. The Terrapins are 13-1 at home, including an undefeated home record in Big Ten play.
Unlike the majority of the road losses, shooting was not the issue for Penn State in this game.
They shot 50% from the field and hit 12 three pointers on 46% shooting. This was their best shooting performance overall in the past few games.
They also defended the three point line much better than in the previous three losses.
Purdue, Nebraska and Wisconsin each hit eight or more threes and shot 40% from deep against Penn State in February.
On Saturday, Maryland made six three pointers on 38% shooting.
The issue was the free throw line and turnovers.
Penn State only shot four free throws and made two. Maryland got 18 of their points from the line on 23 attempts.
The Nittany Lions lead Division 1 basketball turning the ball over the fewest times per game with 8.7 Saturday, 13 turnovers were committed.
That’s the most frustrating thing about this teams’ losing streak.
A weakness is self scouted and addressed, but another issue pops up.
In a conference as deep as the Big Ten, any mistake can turn a winnable game into a loss.
Everyone is waiting to see if coach [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag] can fix what is ailing his team and get the season back on track.
The last time Penn State played a complete game was in late January, when they throttle Michigan 83-61.
Penn State currently sits at 11th in the 14 team Big Ten standings.
Their next game takes place in The Bryce Jordan Center against Illinois at 7pm ET on Valentine’s Day.
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