Blue White Illustrated

M E N ' S B A S K E T B A L L P atrick Ewing patiently listened to the first question of his postgame news conference following George- town's 81-66 loss to Penn State on Nov. 14. The Hoyas, fresh off a third-place finish in the Big East and an NIT appearance last season, had won their first two games, were playing at home and were hoping to earn a win in their first major-conference test. The Nittany Lions quickly, thoroughly, and dominantly squashed those hopes. "They beat us at everything," Ewing said. "We turned the ball over 21 times. We gave them 22 points off of turnovers. They made their threes. We couldn't stop them in the paint. We also couldn't make shots." Traveling to face the Hoyas in Washing- ton, D.C., for the Gavitt Tipoff Games, the Nittany Lions built a big lead, played harder than their hosts throughout, hit a robust 13 3-pointers and never let their lead evaporate. That they did it while star forward Lamar Stevens battled through an un- characteristically off night demonstrated a point that head coach Patrick Chambers had been making for weeks. Stevens had connected on only 1 of 7 shots from the floor in the first half, had missed both of his 3-point tries, had hit just 50 percent of his free throws and committed four turnovers in 18 minutes of action, but his struggles weren't catastrophic to the Nit- tany Lions' chances. Just the opposite, in fact. Guard Myreon Jones produced 14 points in the game's first five minutes on 5-of-6 shooting, in- cluding four 3-pointers, to help Penn State build a 16- 5 lead. Complemented by a 6-point burst from reserve wing Izaiah Brockington and a timely 3-pointer by Myles Dread, the Nittany Lions owned a 25-7 advan- tage before the Hoyas finally began to off- set the offensive attack. By the end of the half, nine Nittany Lions had earned minutes, seven of whom notched at least one field goal on the stat sheet, all while Stevens found other ways to contribute. "I think it shows our depth," Chambers said. "In years past, for any player to start out 0-for-5 with a couple of turnovers, he's not, or they are not, playing defense. They're just not doing it. But he played better defense, and he rebounded the ball harder and tougher. That's growth. That's maturity. That's what you see from Lamar Stevens. And the fact that he didn't have his best night and we were still up a good amount going into halftime, that shows a lot about the talent that we have on this team." Just three games into the SPREAD OFFENSE Lamar Stevens leads the way, but PSU has shown it has other scorers at its disposal DRIVE TIME Even with Stevens struggling in the first half, the Nit- tany Lions over- whelmed Georgetown. Photo courtesy of HoyaReport.com |

• Cover