Penn State Men’s Basketball Game Grades vs. Indiana
There have definitely been better days for Penn State.
The blue and white traveled to Assembly Hall on Wednesday and got smoked to the tune of a 74-57 loss against the Indiana Hoosiers.
Here's a look at how each position group performed during the loss.
Offense: D-
A strong second half is probably the only thing that saved this grade from dropping to an “F”.
The Nittany Lions, without a doubt, played their worst half of basketball during the first half.
Only 17 points were scored by the Penn State offense during the first 20 minutes of play which is less than two Hoosier players had in the entire game.
Getting 10 blocks against you doesn’t help much either.
Once again, it was Jalen Pickett who led the offense with 14 points on solid shooting numbers and John Harrar was right behind him with 13 points of his own.
Despite those numbers and a strong second half, you just can’t score 17 points in a half and expect a high grade— not from this grader at least.
Defense: F
Like the offense, a strong second half defensively saved this grade from going even lower than it already is.
Despite allowing 74 points on the night, this is not the most amount of points the Nittany Lions have allowed during conference play with both Ohio State and Michigan State scoring more against the blue and white.
The defense against the 3-pointer was the biggest thing that hindered the Nittany Lions as the Hoosiers made 10 of their 13 shots from beyond the arc.
Many Hoosiers had a great performance on Wednesday but it was Xavier Johnson who had one of his best performances of the season leading the team with 19 points to go along with six assists and making all three of his 3-pointers.
Again, the Hoosiers only scored 28 points in the second half but the damage was already done.
The blame will be put entirely on the fact that Indiana head coach Mike Woodson wore a suit.
Coaching: D
The huge shift in momentum in the game after both sides came out of the locker rooms was a great sign for Penn State and showed that Micah Shrewsberry made strong adjustments.
Looking at some of the stats, they don’t show a team that got blown out of the water for basically the entire game.
The Nittany Lions only had 12 turnovers which aren’t terrible compared to some of the past totals from this season.
Picking up 16 fouls during the game isn’t great as well as the defense from beyond the arc but things could’ve gone much worse for this Penn State team.
Logan Bourandas is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email lxb5412@psu.edu.
