City of Basketball Love

Marley Paul (@MarleyPaul22)
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Unfazed by the hounding opposing defense was Penn State sophomore Shep Garner on Thursday in the closing moments of a pivotal late-season Big Ten matchup. He had the hot hand all game, and coach Pat Chambers trusted him on their final possession to break the 55 deadlock and seal the victory.

The sophomore guard did just that, reading the defense and driving past Tai Webster on the left wing and was met by a sliding help defender in Shavon Shields. Webster was whistled for the reach-in foul and Garner was sent to the charity stripe for the first time all game.

The former Roman Catholic standout connected on the front end of his two chances at the line with seven seconds remaining, but a hurried floater on the opposite end from Shields was far off at the buzzer, and the Nittany Lions edged Nebraska 56-55 at the Bryce Jordan Center.

Penn State (15-13, 6-9 Big Ten) leapfrogged over the Cornhuskers to ninth place in the conference standing. With three games left in the regular season, the win gives Chambers and his team better control of their seeding in the Big Ten tournament, which begins March 9.

Jockeying for postseason position is something the team isn’t worried about, Brandon Taylor said. They’re focusing on the present. And in the present, Penn State is playing some of its best ball of the season and its reflecting in positive results for once as its now won three straight and four of its last five.

The team’s two leading scorers, Garner and Taylor, are the leading reason for that success. The duo scored 41 of the team’s 56 points on Thursday, while the other six players struggled to provide much relief (5 of 19). Garner (22 points and five assists) and Taylor (19 points and 10 rebounds) are atop the scouting report, are hard to contain when they get things rolling simultaneously.

“We were getting beat by two guys, Shep Garner and Brandon Taylor, as a team,” Nebraska coach Tim Miles conceded. “They had outscored us by that point and we were down 18 points (in the second half).”

Opening the second half with a seven-point lead, Taylor and Garner took turns burying 3s to stretch the lead to 34-24. Four minutes later, that lead blossomed to 18 as the Nittany Lions capitalized on four forced turnovers. But a familiar sight followed.

The lead evaporated and things got tight for the free-flowing home team. Off-ball movement became more stagnant. The ball became more sticky, eventually winding up in the opponents’ hands, and Chambers watched his team go allow the lead to be cut to 47-41 following a 3 by Andrew White III, who had eight points after erupting for a career-high 35 in the two teams’ last meeting.

When asked if the decreased fluidity with the ball bothered him, Chambers was clear, “It absolutely does.”

“We’re a much better team when we have three and four guys in double figures,” he said. “We had that the last couple of games. These guys have to continue to play with great confidence. I told them: ‘We believe in you. If you have an open shot, you’ve got to stick it. It’s uncontested. You’ve got to stick it.’”

Nebraska closed the game on a 11-1 run, but Penn State did what it had to: Deny Shields, who totaled 25 points in his first game back from a four-game absence, and the Cornhuskers from adding two more. It wasn’t pretty, but it Chambers will take it anyway he can.

“When we’re up 17 or 18 there, we have to learn how to put teams away,” he said. “Instead of thinking about outcomes, we have to think about possessions, of winning that next possession. And when the next one comes, winning that one.”