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Penn State fights off stomach bug to top Rutgers

01/01/2017, 9:45pm EST
By Josh Verlin

Tony Carr (above) and Penn State overcame a stomach bug and rough night from the floor to top Rutgers. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Tony Carr was one of the lucky ones.

In the days running up to Penn State’s New Years’ Day trip to Rutgers, a half-dozen or so of his Nittany Lions teammates fell victim to a stomach bug, costing them multiple days of practice.

The freshman out of Roman Catholic, the team’s starting point guard all season long, did everything he could not to join them.

“I just kind of stayed away from all those guys, just stayed hydrated, drink lots of Vitamin C and took some pills to make sure my stomach was good,” he said.

Fortunately for the Nittany Lions, it worked.

With two usual starters coming off the bench due to that illness and several others fighting off the remnants of the bug, Carr and his teammates came together for a scrappy 60-47 win over the Scarlet Knights.

“Really proud of my team,” head coach Pat Chambers said. “We had a tough four days, really difficult. Lot of illness, lot of sickness. And we still practiced anyways. Our assistants had to practice.

“We didn’t really have a full team until yesterday and I didn’t really go hard because they’re still a little bit sick,” he added. “And the guys that were all sick drove down on a van instead of on a bus with the team, so they were a little quarantined. So it’s been interesting.”

Two key contributors affected by the stomach bug, junior guard Shep Garner and redshirt freshman Mike Watkins, both came off the bench instead of their usual starting slots. Garner, the team’s leading scorer (14.1 ppg), went scoreless on 0-for-6 shooting in 24 minutes. Watkins, the conference’s leading shot-blocker (3.3/game), managed one swat along with five points and eight rebounds in 18 minutes.

Instead, Carr (15 points, seven rebounds, three assists) and junior Payton Banks (game-high 20 points) picked up the slack for a Nittany Lions offense that had quite a few cold stretches.

Penn State missed its first 10 from the floor and opened up hitting just five of its first 26 shots. For the game the Nittany Lions were 20-of-55 (36.4 percent), including 7-of-22 (31.8 percent) from 3-point range.

“Control the controllables, which is your energy, your effort, your attitude,” Chambers said. “That’s all we were saying is attitude, we’re fine, shots will fall, be patient. And I think because there was no panic, and Tony Carr and Payton Banks, that we settled in, we settled in a little bit and we saw the ball go through the basket.”

Banks hit two 3-pointers during a 15-2 run during the latter part of the first half, which turned what had been a four-point Rutgers lead into a 27-23 Penn State game at halftime.

The Nittany Lion advantage was still four early in the second half, when the offensive switch clicked for a five-minute stretch that effectively put the game away. Penn State knocked down eight of 10 shots in one stretch, getting two more triples from Banks -- the 6-6 wing was 5-for-10 from 3-point range for the game -- to open up a 47-29 lead with 12:43 to go.

Even though PSU missed its next seven shots to allow Rutgers back to within 11, the lead never felt seriously threatened by a Scarlet Knights squad that was 18-for-63 (28.6 percent) for the game.

Rutgers, which typically out-rebounds its opponents by 10, only managed a 43-42 rebounding edge against a Penn State side that has been getting out-rebounded on the season by its opponents.

“They’re a tough team, they lead the Big Ten in rebounding so we just knew we were going to have to guard them, it was going to be a dogfight,” Carr said. “Just wanted to box out on every possession and get rebounds.”

Carr was seen as the lynchpin of a 2016 Penn State recruiting class that was ranked among the top 30 in the country by 247Sports, a 6-foot-3 point guard who led Roman Catholic to back-to-back Catholic League and state championships in 2015 and 2016.

Through his team’s first 15 games, he’s averaging 11.8 ppg, good for fourth on the team, along with 5.4 rpg and a team-high 3.9 apg. He’s one of three Roman freshmen on the team, along with fellow starter Lamar Stevens (12.1 ppg, 5.7 rpg) and Nazeer Bostick (2.1 ppg, 1.0 rpg).

“It’s going great, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he said. “Coach Chambers is doing a great job coaching me and teaching me how to be a better player. I love all my teammates, so I would say my freshman year is going great.”

Carr started off his college career with seven consecutive double-figure games, averaging 14.3 ppg through that point, then hit a bit of a cold spell, scoring a total of 10 points on 3-of-19 shooting against Georgia Tech, Wright State and George Mason. But he’s bounced back from that, with the 15-point effort against Rutgers marking his fifth consecutive outing back with 11 or more.

“It’s been a little bit of a roller coaster for him, but man does he respond and man does he bounce back, and that’s what you need to see in your young freshmen,” Chambers said. “Get back to the middle of the ring, keep competing, keep fighting, keep punching, and that’s what he’s doing.”


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