BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Penn State defeated Indiana on Saturday afternoon, utilizing a dominant second half to down the Hoosiers 85-71.
Indiana drops to 13-9, 5-6 in the Big Ten. It will return to action Tuesday evening in Columbus, Oh., when it visits the Ohio State Buckeyes. Tipoff for that contest is slated for 7 p.m. ET.
Here’s how it happened on a forgetful afternoon in Bloomington:
PSU utilizes uncharacteristic outside shooting, poor IU defense to advantage
Coming into the noon tilt, Penn State was considered among some of the worst teams in the country at shooting from distance. Making just 30.5% of its attempts through the first 21 games of the season, six makes on 12 attempts through the first 20 minutes of Saturday’s game meant that even though IU was shooting 57.1% from the field, IU’s advantage was just four points at the intermission.
The hot shooting would continue out of the halftime break, as PSU grabbed its first lead of the afternoon after a blitz saw the Nittany Lions score 22 of the second half’s first 29 points. That included 4-of-6 shooting from deep for Penn State.
Indiana’s defense over the last two games looked to have made improvements, holding high-powered Illinois and Iowa teams to well below their season averages points-wise. Over 134 possessions defended against, IU surrendered just 138 points for a 1.029 points per possession.
On Saturday, Penn State scored 85 points on it’s way to scoring a whopping 1.466 ppp.
Mike Woodson had credited the long week off to Indiana’s sudden cohesion and improvements on the defensive end of the floor, but the effort didn’t carry over for a third consecutive outing. Late, soft closeouts allowed the Nittany Lions to keep shooting with confidence, and more shots fell at a higher volume.
It all came without PSU leading scorer Kanye Clary, who missed his second consecutive game with an injury.
That's about as ugly as it gets at home.
Defensive pressure for Penn State helps steer victory for Nittany Lions
New Penn State head coach Mike Rhoades’ full-court pressure is characteristic of him. With a completely overturned roster, the construction of his roster is centric on being able to run around a team and wreak havoc the entire length of the floor.
It helps, of course, when you’ve got last year’s Atlantic 10 Defensive and overall Player of the Year at the head of the snake for the attack. His constant hounding of Indiana’s backcourt helped mitigate the impact they could have on the offensive end of the floor, once forcing a 10-second violation all by itself.
Creating turnovers on 22% of opponent possessions heading into the contest. Keeping control of the ball would always be key for IU to stay in the contest, as its ability to deal with the pressure was tabbed a point of inflection in the game.
But after IU turned the ball over 13 times and the Nittany Lions scored 17 points off of them.
Penn State has no answer for Indiana's frontcourt size early
One of the largest questions heading into Saturday afternoon’s contest was whether Indiana would have sophomore forward Malik Reneau at its disposal. But when he emerged from the tunnel and went through warmups to play, that only further cemented the size advantage IU would be afforded to utilize in the Hoosier attack.
You couldn’t ask for a better first 20 minutes from Kel’el Ware, who showed no signs of lingering injury to his lower body after gutting out one of his toughest performances just four days prior in a win over Iowa.
Through the first half of Saturday’s contest, Ware poured in 17 points on a perfect 6-of-6 shooting, 1-of-1 three point shooting and 4-of-4 converted free throws. He grabbed seven boards in the game’s first stint and added a block, helping power the Hoosiers to a lead at the break.
Nice contributions from Reneau and Mackenzie Mgbako complimented the former Oregon transfer, as the combination of the three accounted for 34 of the first 41 IU points on the afternoon. IU held a comfortable rebounding advantage and dominated the scoring in the paint, owning respective +6 and +10 tallies in the two categories.
Full Box Score
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