Penn State Men’s Basketball Routs Michigan in Record 83-61 Win

If Penn State’s recent performance against Rutgers and close loss to Wisconsin were red flag moments for the Nittany Lions’ NCAA Tournament hopes then a Sunday afternoon’s dismantling of Michigan was a reminder that the college basketball season is long, and that the best way to respond to a bad performance is a good one.

So far this year the Nittany Lions have lost back-to-back Big Ten games just once, a sequence that saw Penn State (14-7, 5-5) travel to Michigan before hosting No. 1 Purdue. It’s the continued ability to rebound from defeat that makes Penn State’s 83-61 shellacking of Michigan — which gives the Nittany Lions two wins in their last three games and the program’s biggest margin of victory against the Wolverines — so important.

As a program the Nittany Lions have a fairly long history of seemingly inexplicable victories or shooting performances that have been followed up or preceded by a long string of losses. In and of itself Penn State beating a Michigan team hovering around .500 would not have been particularly noteworthy, but as Penn State ran the Wolverines back to Ann Arbor by the end of the first half, Sunday’s blowout win was another bounce-back victory in a season that now sees the Nittany Lions a healthy 5-5 in conference play. As Penn State slowly racks up wins over the course of its Big Ten slate and eyes up an NCAA Tournament bid, the losses and missed opportunities begin to sting less and less for a program looking to make it back to the big dance and look more and more to be the unavoidable downs of a prolonged season.

On the court itself it’s hard to find a way to define Penn State’s win in any other way than dominant. The Nittany Lions and Wolverines held close for the majority of the first half, but Penn State’s 31-30 lead with 4:34 to go in the half exploded into an 18-2 run as three-pointers by big man Michael Henn and Andrew Funk overwhelmed a Michigan team stunned in the final minutes of the first half. Penn State headed to the locker room ahead 49-32 over the course of a scoring run that completely stumbled the Wolverines. Penn State made nine attempts from beyond the arc in the opening half, from Myles Dread’s late turnaround three to Henn’s makes after attempting just eight all year, there was little the Wolverines could do against one of the best ball-scree and three-point shooting teams in the country. Jalen Pickett added 17 of his own in the half on 7-for-8 shooting that was clinical at every turn.

For the Wolverines, it was Jett Howard’s 18 points in his return from an ankle injury that held Michigan afloat in the half.

Opening the second half Penn State looked to buck a trend of slow-starting second half play and started on a 12-4 run to keep Michigan well out of striking distance. Another 8-0 surge near the midway point of the half would make it a 72-41 Penn State lead with 10:53 to go. A 20-11 run closed out the rest of regulation. Penn State would lead by as many as 32 with just under 10 minutes to go in regulation and would at one point be on what would amount to a 42-11 run that spanned both halves of play.

Pickett ended the day with 25 points, eight rebounds and eight assists as he looked to log another triple-double effort. Seth Lundy poured in 22 points of his own while Andrew Funk’s 19 points behind four made threes only added to the rout. Henn managed a 10 point outing on four-for-four shooting.

The Nittany Lions finished the day shooting 54.4% from the field and 13-for-30 from beyond the arc on a three-point rate that was even better during the main thrust of the game. Penn State’s larger starting five held Michigan big man Hunter Dickinson to just six points while the Nittany Lions won on the glass 36-27.

Penn State will next head on the road to face No. 1 Purdue before taking on Nebraska, Wisconsin and Maryland in the opening half of February play. The Nittany Lions won’t need to win all of their 10 remaining regular season games, but if Penn State can continue to bounce back from losses with victories, the Nittany Lions might just punch their ticket for the first time in decades.