Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1340947
| M E N ' S B A S K E T B A L L LIVING IN THE MOMENT With his resilient attitude, senior John Harrar shows the way forward for Lions J ohn Harrar has always seen parallels between the life he loves and the game he loves, but never have the similari- ties felt as strong as they have in this, his final season in the program. That point has been driven home in the form of repeated challenges this season. The senior forward could only watch as his beloved head coach, Patrick Cham- bers, was forced to resign five weeks be- fore Penn State's COVID-shortened sea- son was set to begin. Then, once it did finally begin, the Nittany Lions dropped five games in which they held a lead with under three minutes to play in regulation. Reflecting on those disappointments, Har- rar said he has developed a proclivity for leaving the past in the past. "A lot of things happen to everyone, from every walk of life, and you're just going to get hit hard. Some hurt more than others, but it's about the next play," Harrar said. "The funny thing is, after a loss, people will be tex- ting me and my response is, 'Next play.' "What are you gonna do? You can watch the film, you can get better from it, but your mindset has to be next play. Let's go get another win." That philosophy has been tested repeatedly this year. First came a 98-92 overtime loss to Seton Hall at home on Dec. 6, a game in which Penn State squandered an 8-point advantage with less than two minutes to play. Then there were brutal near-miss losses at Michigan (62-58), at Indiana in OT (87-85), at Ohio State (83- 79) and at Michigan State (60-58). The narrow loss to the Buckeyes came on the heels of consecutive victories over Rutgers and Northwestern and might have plunged Penn State back into the kind of funk it endured at the start of the conference season, when it dropped its first five games. But that turned out not to be the case. The Lions defeated 14th- ranked Wisconsin, 81-71, in their next game, and after falling to the Badgers, 72- 56, in the rematch two days later in Madi- son, they got another win, 55-50, against visiting Maryland on Feb. 5. "I thought the way we responded from a tough loss at Ohio State" was impor- tant, interim coach Jim Ferry said. "That was a game where we could have beaten another ranked opponent on the road. We played well enough, but we lost it. Devas- tating. But to see these guys come back ALL-AROUND EFFORT Against Wisconsin, Harrar had 17 points, eight rebounds, a block and a steal, helping lead the Nittany Lions to an 81-71 upset vic- tory. Photo by Steve Manuel