Blue White Illustrated

F ollowing Michigan State's 79-71 vic- tory at the Bryce Jordan Center on March 3, Tom Izzo summed up Penn State's 2019-20 season in a way that only the longtime Spartans coach could. Rounding out his 25th season at the helm, extending Michigan State's streak of NCAA tournament appearances to 23 in the process, Izzo described the met- tle it took for his 16th-ranked team to overcome a 15-point halftime deficit against the Nittany Lions. He said the Spartans had relied on the toughness that had been ingrained in their pro- gram through season after season of championship experience. And he added that under the direction of head coach Patrick Chambers, Penn State was working to develop that same sort of mentality. "He's done an unbelievable job here. He's got a very good team," Izzo said. "Unfortunately, the league is the best it's been since he's been in this league. Otherwise, there are a lot of years he would have run through the league him- self." Spanning four weeks in January and February, the Nittany Lions did just that. Responding to a 2-4 start in confer- ence play, one that included a blowout loss at No. 6 Ohio State and a takedown of No. 4 Maryland at the BJC in Decem- ber, as well as a win over No. 23 Iowa to open January followed by a three-game losing skid, Penn State produced an un- precedented streak of success. Begin- ning with a 90-76 win against visiting Ohio State on Jan. 18, the Nittany Lions came roaring back, following their vic- tory over the Buckeyes with wins against Michigan, Indiana, Nebraska and Michi- gan State. It was the first time in the program's history that the Lions had beaten five consecutive Big Ten oppo- nents. They then made it six in a row with an 83-77 win against Minnesota and fol- lowed that game with a lopsided 88-76 victory at Purdue and a 77-61 thrashing of Northwestern at home. Those results propelled the Lions into second place in the Big Ten standings behind only Maryland, and the possibil- ity of a league title crystallized with a mere three weeks of basketball left to play. As it turned out, they weren't able to sustain their momentum. Myreon Jones, the sophomore guard who had played through illness and scored 20 points in a 75-70 victory at Michigan State on Feb. 4, was forced to miss the team's next six games. While they won their first three games without Jones in the lineup, the Lions lost two of their next three, falling to Illinois at home and Indiana on the road before bouncing back with a 65-64 win over Rutgers at the BJC. Jones, the team's second-leading scorer, returned to action for an 11 a.m. tip at Iowa on Feb. 29 and was pre- dictably rusty, connecting on only 2 of 9 attempts from the floor in 23 minutes and finishing with four points in a 77-68 loss. He fared better at home against Michigan State, scoring 16 points in 28 minutes. Jones went 4 of 4 from 3-point range to start the game but faded in the second half, matching the trajectory of the team as a whole on senior night at the BJC. The regular season ended with a third consecutive loss, as the Nittany Lions fell to Northwestern, 80-69, in Evanston four years. Not just this year – for four years. He's won a heck of a lot of games for us. And he wants it so bad that some- times I think you press a little bit. So I think he's been pressing over the last cou- ple of weeks," Chambers said. "Hopefully, he can relax now. The season's over. He's done a great job for us. He's going to go down as the all-time scoring leader here eventually. And we won a heck of a lot of games. "So I hope he doesn't hang his head. What a warrior. Think about that, what Lamar Stevens has done, so you can un- derstand if he's a little tired at the end of the 20-game Big Ten season." Stevens is mindful of what he's accom- plished at Penn State, and he's proud of it. "Go back to my freshman year and see the gym then versus how it was [against Michigan State] and a couple of Saturday games," he said. "That's a huge sense of pride for me, just to see how far this pro- gram has come. "But I'm nowhere near satisfied. I know that we have so much more to give and so much more to prove." ■ Midseason win streak shows Nittany Lions' potential | Ryan Snyder MYREON JONES

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