Blue White Illustrated

March 2022

Penn State Sports Magazine

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OPENING SHOT NO PLACE LIKE HOME One of Micah Shrewsberry's goals in his first season as men's basketball coach at Penn State has been to build a durable fan following. The way to do that, he has said, is to give those who fill the Bryce Jordan Cen- ter on any given night a reason to keep coming back. The Nittany Lions certainly did that with their perfor- mance against Iowa on Jan. 31. Playing at home for the first time in 20 days (a Jan. 19 game against Minnesota was postponed), Penn State put on a show for the 7,977 fans in attendance, outlasting the Hawkeyes in double overtime, 90-86. The Lions squandered a six-point lead in the final 71 seconds of regulation, with Iowa's Keegan Murray sending the game to overtime on a tip-in at the buzzer. It could have been a crushing blow, but Penn State didn't lose its resolve. Myles Dread hit a three-pointer to tie the score in the final seconds of the first over- time period, and with Dread's fellow senior guard Jalen Pickett leading the way, the Lions finished off Iowa in the second overtime. "Things didn't always go well for us, but we kept fighting back," Shrewsberry said. "You get a lead, and they send it to overtime, and you have to fight back, you have to bounce back. It goes to double overtime, and you've got to bounce back. And these guys did it all night long. I'm proud of these guys and how we responded." Among the stars was transfer forward Greg Lee (right), who came off the bench to shoot 6 of 7 from the field and finish with 16 points and eight rebounds in 27 minutes. The Nittany Lions also got big performances from se- nior forward John Harrar (19 points, 10 rebounds) and junior forward Seth Lundy (17 points, 11 rebounds). As a team, Penn State outrebounded the Hawkeyes 53-43 and outshot them 44.6 percent to 35.1 percent. It was exactly what Shrewsberry had hoped to see from his team, which had lost three road games in the two weeks leading up to Iowa's visit and hadn't had an opportunity to balance its daunting excursions to the Midwest with some games in the BJC's much friendlier confines. "It takes something out of your team when you don't get home games," Shrewsberry said. "But to be back here, I'm proud of Nittany Nation, I'm proud of the Legion of Blue and everybody for sticking by us and showing up tonight, and I think our guys fought. I say it all the time, if somebody gets one opportunity to come watch us play, I hope they left and felt good about how we played that night." PHOTO BY THOMAS FRANK CARR 8 M A R C H 2 0 2 2

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