City of Basketball Love

Marley Paul (@MarleyPaul22)

UNIVERSITY PARK — Clinging to a four-point lead in the final 30 seconds, Penn State needed just one more stop to secure its seventh win of the season. As Louisiana-Monroe frantically swung the ball around the perimeter, and finally took a shot, Josh Reaves leaped from the free throw line to swat a 3-point attempt into the stands.

The student section, alongside the rest of the 4,824 on hand at Rec Hall, erupted as Reaves stood in front the crowd with two fist pumps after recording his third block of the game that seemingly sealed the 54-50 Penn State win on Saturday.

“Honestly, I just wanted to get there and contest the shot,” Reaves said. “I was fortunate enough to get a hand on it.

“My reaction was pretty much due to being behind the crowd and just seeing how excited they were, then I turn around and see my teammates coming towards me just all excited that it happened and sealed that game for us. So I was just really excited.”

That play summarized game for Penn State, as the Nittany Lions erased 12 shots, coming into the contest averaging 4.2 blocks per game. Reaves recorded three, plus another seven from their 7-footer Jordan Dickerson, who now has 12 blocks over the past two games.

Saturday’s game concluded a stretch of four games in seven days for Penn State, suffering its lone loss on the road to George Washington on Tuesday. When asked if he felt the fatigue of the heavy workload this week, senior forward Brandon Taylor said he “felt it as soon as the buzzer went off.” 

“I was shot and I’m just happy to that we finished off those four games, 3-1,” he said. “We always want to go 4-0, but we’ll take 3-1, especially with a win like that.”

After trailing for most of the first 20 minutes of play, Taylor connected on a 3-pointer put Penn State up 21-20 with 3:53 left in the half. The basket capped a 6-0 Lions run, as the Warhawks had missed their last six shots, going scoreless for almost five minutes. 

The two teams would continue to exchange leads—seven times in the first half—but Reaves would collect a loose ball and fly down the court before allowing the approaching defender to run past him, allowing  Reaves to finger roll a layup, sending Penn State into the half with a 25-24 lead. 

The Warhawks opened the second half with a 9-2 run through the first four minutes to take the largest lead of the afternoon at 33-27. 

Shep Garner, the best shooter on the team at 46 percent from 3-point range, played just seven minutes in the first half after picking up his second foul with 12:47 in the first half.

Penn State missed 17 of its 20 3-point attempts, as Garner went 0-for-3 from distance, which made the defensive side of the court the main focus.

“If you look at the statistics, it would look like we had some tired legs,” coach Pat Chambers said. “It’s been a difficult week. I put a lot on them this week: four games, exams, paper, you name it. Probably not the best time to schedule four games, however, with saying that, I think we grew up a lot.”

The offense continued to work through Taylor on the block, as he picked his spots and dished it off to teammates. Taylor scored a team-high 16 points and finished with three assists, but easily could have been significantly higher with a few more makes from his teammates. 

After finishing the first half scoreless, Garner made winning plays for his team going down the stretch. With just over five minutes left in the game, he dribbled down the court, into the paint off a brush screen from Taylor and finished a three-point play to put Penn State up 42-40. 

Moments later, the sophomore guard took it hard into the paint once again. This time met by Travis Munnings, Garner alertly fired a right-handed hook shot after drawing the foul and completed another three-point play, this time giving Penn State a six-point lead—its largest of the game, with just one two minutes to play. 

“He stepped up big time,” Taylor said of the play of his point guard in crunch time. “I remember in the huddle I grabbed him and told him that I need him no matter, even if he had zero points throughout the whole game, I just need him to do something and he came through for all of us. Those were two big-time moves and we got it done.”