Penn State shows toughness in bounce-back win over Indiana

Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry called out his team’s toughness following a loss to No. 1 Purdue on Sunday. He also called out the Big Ten’s officiating in recent games. Not least of all, Shrewsberry especially called out the senior leaders among his Nittany Lions.

Nonplussed by all, Shrewsberry set the stage for a critical showdown for Penn State on Wednesday night against Indiana.

“That’s the biggest thing right now. You prove things in moments. You prove things at different times. We didn’t play well in the second half. You can’t let that affect your psyche of man, we’re not a very good team,” Shrewsberry said after Penn State’s loss. “We got beat by the number one team in the country… It’s not that belief of, We can’t play with them, it’s more a belief of, Can we do it for an entire game? 

“It’s not just Purdue; it’s Indiana, it’s Iowa, it’s Michigan, it’s whoever we play. You got to do it and you can’t talk about it. You gotta prove it for 40 minutes, you got to do it. We know we can do it. Now it’s about sticking with it when things aren’t going well.”

Hosting the Hoosiers at the Bryce Jordan Center, the targets of Shrewsberry’s ire responded. Tying a program record with 18 made 3-pointers, Penn State unleashed a dominating, 85-66 win over Indiana. The effort improved the Nittany Lions to 12-5 for the season and 3-3 in Big Ten play.

Here’s a look at what led Penn State to the win:

Micah Shrewsberry press conference

How it happened

The Nittany Lions’ effort wasn’t dominant from the get-go. Rather, trading punches early out of the gates, a missed assignment put Penn State down 12-10 at the 12:08 mark in the first half, drawing an uncharacteristic Shrewsberry timeout.

The Nittany Lions responded.

Ripping off a 16-6 run after the timeout, sparked by Seth Lundy’s 14 points in the first half, bolstered by 11 points on three made 3-pointers for Andrew Funk, the Nittany Lions led 36-27 at the break. Again, the moment called back Penn State’s advantage over Purdue on Sunday, finding its halftime advantage evaporating quickly at the Palestra with a lacking second-half effort.

“It’s something we got to address as a team. We gotta be better,” Shrewsberry said Sunday. “This isn’t the first time it’s happened. I’m talking about it in the locker room of how we got to come out, how we have to play, how we have to do things with energy. Sometimes I sugarcoat it and dance around it, but we gotta be better.”

Wednesday night, the Nittany Lions were. But, the improvement wasn’t without an early 8-2 run for Indiana to cut into Penn State’s lead. Unleashing a ferocious bout of Funk from beyond-the-arc, though, the hosts quickly built their lead back to double-digits.

Going deep

Funk’s display from deep bridged the first and second half. Trying to bounce back himself from a 3-point effort at the Palestra, the grad transfer needed to wait until the final minutes of the first half to send home his first 3-pointer of the game against the Hoosiers.

Then he did it again. And again. And again. Then after the break, he did it again three more times in the first six minutes of the second half for Penn State.

Backed by two more made 3-pointers from Lundy, what’d been a 44-39 advantage ballooned to 63-49 at the midpoint of the second half. Though Hood-Schifino kept Indiana competitive for an Indiana team teetering in the game, the killer instinct Shrewsberry had attempted to elicit from Penn State in the final games of the nonconference schedule emerged.