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Penn State allows Purdue to slip by in OT

02/21/2017, 11:15pm EST
By Vince Lungaro

Vincent Lungaro (@VinceLungaro)
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Several times this season Penn State has been a few plays or possessions away from recording an impressive win.

Then, in the game's final moments, the youthful Nittany Lions seem to crumble and come out on the losing end of things.

Tuesday night's defeat to No. 14 Purdue followed a similar pattern.

The Nittany Lions came close to knocking off the Big Ten-leading Boilermakers, but defensive lapses in the overtime period allowed Purdue to escape the Bryce Jordan Center with the 74-70 win.

Earlier this season in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament against then-No. 1 Duke, a final four contender, Penn State (14-14, 6-9 Big Ten) unexpectedly hung around but fell by 10 points.

At Michigan, where the program had not recorded a win since the 2009-10 season, Penn State led by double-digits in the second half only to see the Wolverines storm back for the 72-69 win.

Twice against Indiana, the Nittany Lions had legitimate opportunities to put a win away, only to fall short in the final moments. The first time on a James Blackmon Jr. buzzer-beater, the second time losing in a triple overtime thriller in Assembly Hall.

Add Tuesday night’s nail biter loss to the Boilermakers s (23-5, 12-3) to that list of near-wins for Penn State this season.

The Nittany Lions jumped out to a 12-2 lead and went into halftime on top by four, before Purdue countered by outscoring Penn State 45-37 in the second half and overtime.

Ahead by two in that overtime period, Penn State allowed Boilermakers guard Ryan Cline to knock down back-to-back three-pointers to give his team the boost it needed to get the win.

“We were right there, it was our game,” Penn State coach Pat Chambers said. “You go up two in overtime and then turn the ball over. I feel like Penn State beat Penn State in a couple of situations out there.”

So many “nearly-there” wins would have seemed like some form of victory in season’s past for a program that has never won a Big Ten Championship, but for Chambers, coming close is no longer the standard of success.

“There’s no more moral victories here,” Chambers said. “We have got to get some things done. We have to close out games. We have to get rebounds. We have to get stops. We made some crucial mistakes at critical times.”

Freshmen Tony Carr and Lamar Stevens, two players who led Roman Catholic High School to back-to-back PIAA AAAA State Championships, combined for 39 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists Tuesday night.

To say they’ve experienced their fair share of success on the court would be an understatement. And similar to their head coach, neither one of them are all too interested in feeling good about themselves just for putting in the right amount of effort.

Even showing growth since the last time these two team’s met (a 77-52 thrashing by the Boilermakers in West, Lafayette on Jan. 21) by making this game a lot tighter of a contest, winning basketball games alone is the driving force behind what the pair views as success.

“The effort means nothing to me if we don’t get the win,” Carr said. “Winning is what matters. You can play as hard as you want and as good as you want, if you don’t win, nothing comes out of that. Proud of my team, we fought hard, but we have to start coming up with the W.”

Purdue is ultimately a version of what Chambers, Stevens and Carr want Penn State to become.

A team consistently competing for conference titles, NCAA Tournament berths and Sweet 16 appearances.

The key to getting to that point boils down to consistency, according to Chambers. He see’s his team plays well for large stretches of a game, only to see two or three errors cost them.

After going ahead by two to start overtime on a Stevens jumper, the Nittany Lions broke down defensively and allowed time and space for one of Purdue’s best three-point shooters in Cline space. Cline converted both opportunities and helped turn things around to give the Boilermakers their sixth straight win.

Defensive lapses like that are what makes the difference between near wins and near losses. That’s something the youthful Nittany Lions are still figuring out as the regular season approaches its conclusion.

Penn State has shown it can beat top-tier programs like Michigan State when the two team’s met at The Palestra. The Nittany Lions have proven they have what it takes to beat ranked teams, as they did against Minnesota and Maryland. 

The next step is bringing those level of performances night in and night out, not every other game.

“It encourages you for the future to see how talented these guys are and we got cornerstones for sure. We’re just tapping into their potential, Chambers said. “Now they have to learn how to bring it consistently on a daily basis.”


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