City of Basketball Love

Will Slover (@WillSlover31)
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In the back end of the Never Forget Tribute Classic doubleheader, hosted in Newark, N.J. at the Prudential Center, it was a tale of two halves for the Penn State Nittany Lions.

Trailing by 20 points at the half, and seeing their deficit grow to 24 shortly thereafter against in-state rival Pitt, Penn State outscored the Panthers by a margin of 19 over the next 15 minutes of gameplay and found themselves trailing by just five with 1:50 to go.

Following a Shep Garner free throw which got Pitt’s lead down to five, which was the lowest it went, Pitt senior Sheldon Jeter drilled a trey from the corner to put Pitt up by eight and Penn State away for good, as the Panthers went on to win by a score of 81-73.

“We go down five and Sheldon hits a big three,” said Penn State head coach Pat Chambers. “Give him credit, seniors make big plays.”

As for getting the opportunity to play in the inaugural Never Forget Tribute Classic, Chambers was thrilled to be one of the four teams chosen.

“What an awesome event. Its an incredible day for our program to be on a stage with these great teams and players and coaches and obviously, for an incredible cause,” said Chambers. “I talked to the team about where I was for 9/11/2001, you can never forget. We prayed for all those who we lost on that day. Just a great day overall.”

In the midst of playing a huge event with top-tier programs, it seemed as if Penn State lost itself in the hype in the early going, falling behind 27-11 just 13 minutes into the ball game and coming into halftime down by a score of 42-22.

A lowlight of their poor first half was their field-goal percentage, as the Nittany Lions shot a poor 7-of-27 (.259) from the field and they also allowed Pitt to double up on them in the rebound category, 26-13.

“I’m not sure where we were in the first half, maybe the bus was late,” said Chambers. “But we showed up in the second half and competed like a Penn State basketball team.”

Competing is just what they did as the young Nittany Lions team showed grit and determination in never letting the deficit become too much to handle.

Redshirt freshman forward Mike Watkins was a force in the second half for Penn State, scoring 13 of his team-high 17 points and reeling in 13 of his game-best 15 boards in the second frame.

“He doesn't even realize he just went for 17 and 15,” said Chambers. “He’s in there crying, he’s very upset. That’s the type of kid he is and the type of competitor he is. He loves this program and he loves this team and he’s disappointed with the first half.”

Assisting Watkins in the failed Penn State comeback effort were juniors Garner and Payton Banks along with freshman Tony Carr. Banks and Carr both finished with 13, while Garner added 12.

For Pitt, they used the same winning formula they’ve been using all season long; their senior trio of Michael Young, Jamel Artis, and Sheldon Jeter.

The three combined to score 55 points and reel in 27 rebounds while leading Pitt to their sixth win in the last seven games.

“Give Pitt a lot of credit, their seniors made the big plays when they had to,” said Chambers. Sheldon Jeter, who I have a great relationship with, and Michael Young and Jamel, they made the plays.”

Young, who leads the ACC in scoring and also ranks in the top ten in rebounds, finished with a game-high of 29 points, one shy of his season high, and added in nine rebounds. Following his effort were Artis, who finished with 16 and eight, and Jeter who added in the remaining eight points and 10 boards.

Both teams will have the next week off, as Pitt doesn’t take the court again until next Saturday, when they host Rice at 7:00 PM, and Penn State will lace them back up on Sunday when they travel to Madison Square Garden to go to battle with St. John’s at 11:00 AM.

Chambers is expecting his team’s impressive second half to translate over to their next game and continue for the rest of the season.

“We’re going to learn from this and we’re going to get better from this,” said Chambers. “For sure.”