Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1492675
8 M A R C H 2 0 2 3 OPENING SHOT CHALLENGE ACCEPTED Penn State was coming off its worst loss of the season, a 65-45 thrashing at Rutgers, when it began preparing for Michigan's Jan. 29 visit to the Bryce Jordan Center. Head coach Micah Shrews- berry had offered a blunt assessment of the per- formance against the Scarlet Knights after his team shot 15.4 percent from three-point range and was outrebounded 43-26. "You can't play soft in this league if you want to win basketball games," he said. "That is 100 percent a fact. We played soft, and we got beat by 20." It was a harsh assessment, but Shrewsberry knew his players' capabilities, knew where they had fallen short and understood what they needed to hear with the Wolverines headed to the BJC five days later. His tough love worked. No one would call Penn State's performance against Michigan soft. The Nittany Lions romped to an 83-61 victory, using a 42-11 run over a nearly 15-minute stretch bridg- ing the first and second halves to earn their most lopsided win ever over the Wolverines. Senior forward Seth Lundy was a big part of Penn State's uprising. He scored 22 points — his fourth 20-point game of the season — and added 7 rebounds. As a team, the Lions shot a sizzling 61.3 percent in building a 49-32 halftime lead. The first-half point total was PSU's highest since December 2019 when it hit Central Connecticut State with a 51-point barrage. The Lions also matched up physically with Michi- gan. They won the rebounding battle 36-27 and outscored the Wolverines 28-22 in the paint. Hunter Dickinson, Michigan's 7-foot-1 All-America center, scored a season-low 6 points on 3-of-9 shooting and had just 2 rebounds. After the game, Shrewsberry said he fully ex- pected his players to respond following their dis- appointing night in Piscataway. "I challenged them after that game at Rutgers," he said. "That's what families do. They get on each other, they challenge each other, they fight. They do what they need to do, but they're still family. And there's nobody else that I'm rolling with but these guys. So, I challenged them, and they responded." — Matt Herb PHOTO BY DANIEL ALTHOUSE