Second half surge lifts Penn State over Illinois in B1G Tournament

Coming out of a win over Maryland on Sunday, Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry left the worthiness of his team for the NCAA Tournament up to others. Noting 19 games won, and a .500 record against Big Ten opponents, the Nittany Lions would need to do what delivered them to that point.

Play good basketball, and do it in Chicago at this week’s Big Ten Tournament, and the rest would take care of itself.

“We’re playing our best ball right now. And this is what we’ve been aiming for all season,” Shrewsberry said. “Now we’ll just go have fun. Let’s go have fun, let’s enjoy what we’re doing, let’s enjoy playing together. And this whole week is going to be a circus. It’s gonna be a circus in Chicago, because anybody can beat anybody on any night. So you get rested, you get healthy, and you go play your best basketball.”

Thursday night at the United Center, the Nittany Lions did.

Battling a physical Illinois team, the No. 7-seed Nittany Lions lifted themselves to a critical, 79-76 win over the 10-seed to advance to the third round of the Big Ten Tournament. Penn State will face 2-seed Northwestern on Friday at 6:30 p.m.

Survive and advance for Penn State

And as a result, on Sunday afternoon, they’ll also likely hear Penn State’s name called as an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament. Firmly projected as a bubble team entering the matchup with the Illini, the win improves the Nittany Lions to a 6-6 record against Quad 1 opponents with an opportunity to play another on Friday night against the Wildcats.

Likely ending the longest drought in the Big Ten for programs left out of the NCAA Tournament, Penn State’s late-season run spurred on all of it. While a certain at-large bid was due for the Nittany Lions during the 2019-20 season, their aspirations were short-circuited by the Covid-19 pandemic.

To get there, the Nittany Lions needed to survive one of their most challenging situations of the season.

How it happened

In front of a huge Illinois contingent of fans at the United Center, Penn State found itself on the wrong side of a physical matchup. With fouls racking up for Mikey Henn and Kebba Njie on the interior, Illini big man Dain Dainja went to work.

What’d been a 10-point advantage with 8:22 to play in the first half gradually evaporated with Penn State’s defense in foul trouble. Concurrent to a long stretch of missed shots, the Nittany Lions unable to connect on 9-of-11 shots going into the half, the result was a 31-30 Penn State advantage at halftime.

It wouldn’t last.

Continuing to attack Penn State in the paint, while locking Penn State down on the perimeter, the Illini built a 45-40 advantage when Dainja earned an and-one trip to the free throw line with 14:18 left to play in the game. But, in his celebration, Dainja inadvertently knocked heads with Myles Dread, sending the Nittany Lions to the free throw line with possession.

“That’s big because Dain just got an and-one. He made the free throw, and then Funk shot and made two free throws and it was their ball again,” said Terrence Shannon Jr. “It was a big momentum changer. We could have went up six and got a stop and then went up eight. So you never know. We still could have won, but it is what it is.”

The sequence led to an immediate 7-0 run for the Nittany Lions. It set up an intense back-and-forth from which Penn State would eventually emerge.

Timely shots

From the time off of Dainja’s technical foul, Penn State caught fire, particularly from transfer guard Andrew Funk. Hitting four of his game-high 6-of-9 effort from beyond the arc in the game’s home stretch, a lead bouncing back and forth eventually turned to the Nittany Lions thanks to another 7-0 run.

With Jalen Pickett taking over for an and-one at the 6:26 mark, then Funk hitting to go ahead 67-59 with 3:42 to play, and again with 1:51 remaining to go up 72-60, the Nittany Lions built enough cushion to stave off a frenetic final two minutes trading foul shots and easy Illinois buckets.

Riding a flurry of clutch shots in big moments, Shrewsberry said that’s what he’s come to expect from this group.

“That’s what they do. That’s who they are. We got old guys that you just rely on. They just make such tough plays,” he told Penn State’s radio broadcast team. “We’ve been playing NCAA basketball for three weeks. It’s been do or die for us. We don’t want to stop now. We’re happy we won, but we’re not satisfied.”