I was excited

I was excited about Penn State's upcoming basketball season. Returning starters, two speedy new guards, and unprecedented depth at forward were all reasons to look forward to this season. However, consecutive losses to South Carolina and Rider have left me considerably less optimistic than before. Right now it doesn't seem like this team will do any better than in years past, but there's still a lot of games ahead of us.

In the game against Carolina, PSU looked versatile, as redshirt freshmen David Jackson (7 points) and Andrew Jones (8) led the Lions in scoring in the 1st half. In the 2nd half, Jamelle Cornley made his surprisingly quick return and quickly scored 8 points with 9 rebounds in just 14 minutes. Claxton and Battle each scored in double figures.

The two themes of the game were:
1) USC point guard Devan Downey scoring from everywhere (30 points)
2) Penn State missing 3-point shots over and over and over (4/25, no typo)

The persistent Talor Battle was a big reason for Penn State's shooting woes. Despite being ice-cold from long-range, Battle was not afraid to just keep chucking it up there. He finished 1/10 from downtown, and a reasonable 4/7 from midtown. Even Morrisssey and Walker were a combined 1/7 from 3-point land.

Penn State actually played man-to-man defense in this one, and perhaps that's why one player game up so big. I doubt a zone could've stopped Downey, though. He scored from both outside and inside, finishing with sparkling numbers from both 3-point range (4/7) and the free throw line (10/11). Shooting guard Zam Fredrick and forward Mike Holmes were the supporting cast for Downey. Holmes was very efficient from the post, adding 13 points on 5/8 shooting and 9 rebounds. Fredrick did a little bit of everything with 16 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists.

I was still feeling okay after this game. The Lions got scoring from many different players, Talor Battle's aggressive play was encouraging. If only he had made a couple more of those 3s!

Then we played Rider today...

The whole game was a complete nightmare. Penn State game out of the gate hot and took a 13-point lead that lasted about 5 minutes. Cornley came into the game again and Mike Walker finally got hot from downtown to give us a few minutes of bliss before it all went bad again.

In the 2nd half, Penn State went cold from downtown again, but mostly they just couldn't play defense. Jason and Ryan Thompson as well as the Mansell brothers all shot around 50%. When Ed switched to zone it got even uglier. PSU really looked LOST playing zone coverage, and Rider's snipers shot over it with ease.

Penn State looked like the old Penn State again. Geary Claxton tried to do to much and ended up scoring 23 points, but on 9/24 shooting. For some reason Battle didn't play in the 2nd half. Andrew Jones and DJ were almost non-factors. Cornley was the only bright spot for the Lions. He's actually looked like a better shooter than Claxton and doesn't seem to force things as much. He ended with 17 points on 8/12 shooting.

And that was that. And we don't have to watch Penn State play football OR basketball tomorrow!

Here's something to dwell on, though: UCF just took Kansas State to overtime before finally falling. PSU plays UCF on Sunday. Absolute must win. Finishing 8th place in that tournament could be the worst thing to ever happen. We'll see...