City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Shep Garner had to think for a minute.

It’s not like his time in high school was so long ago -- just a few months shy of three years since he last donned a Roman Catholic uniform, trading it in shortly thereafter for the blue and white of Penn State.

But in that time he’d played 81 games as a Nittany Lion, in every gym in the Big Ten and quite a few others around the country. So it’s understandable why it took him a minute to remember just what it was like the last time he played in the Palestra, back in February 2014.

“It’s been a while since I’ve played here in the Catholic League but I can remember it being loud,” he said. “But it was really loud today.”

Indeed, it was rocking and rolling inside the Palestra on Saturday, when Penn State stormed past Michigan State and Hall of Fame coach Tom Izzo 72-63 in front of a sellout crowd of nearly 9,000. And while the Spartans had their fair share of fans who made their presence felt at times, it was an overwhelmingly pro-Nittany Lions crowd.

And they made themselves heard.

“That last stretch when we had the game sealed -- the last minute, minute and a half,” Garner said, “it got really loud.”

The last time Garner played on the Palestra court was not a happy memory. It was Feb. 27, 2014 when Roman Catholic’s Catholic League championship run ended with a loss in the title game to Neumann-Goretti, the final in a string of six straight PCL titles for the Saints.

With Garner in college the following year, Roman -- powered by current PSU freshmen Tony Carr and Nazeer Bostick -- won the Catholic League title. In 2016, with another first-year Nittany Lion (Lamar Stevens) aboard, they did it again.

“I think this one definitely will make me forget, at least a little bit, about some of that,” Garner said. “Not a perfect replacement -- it helps a little bit, though.”

Garner contributed eight points to the victory, though his first three -- scored on a free throw and jumper in the first half -- were the most meaningful on a personal level. They represented the 998th, 999th and 1000th points of his Penn State career, making him the 32nd player in the program’s history to get to the four-digit scoring plateau.

At his current career rate of a little more than a dozen points per contest, he should have no problem surpassing the 1,437 points he scored at Roman and could make a run at the top five scorers in PSU history; Pete Lisicky is currently fifth at 1,605 points.

Shep wasn’t the only Garner to make noise at the Palestra on Saturday. As she’s done at many of her son’s games since high school, Kim Garner sung the national anthem, serving up her usual terrific rendition of the Star Spangled Banner

“Just to hear her voice and hear her voice in the stands was just an unbelievable feeling, unbelievable amount of support that she shows,” Garner said. “She’s definitely getting the World’s Greatest Mom award from me every year.”

Though it wasn’t Garner’s best stat line of the season, as his eight points came on 2-for-8 from the floor and 1-for-6 from 3-point range, he couldn’t have cared less afterwards.

“Coming back home, having a big game like that, Hall of Fame coach, getting a win on this floor, it was beautiful,” he said. “It was all I could ask for.”