Penn State walked out of the Bryce Jordan Center with a 97-93 win over Chattanooga on Thursday night, but the mood in the locker room didn’t match the final score.
The Nittany Lions are 2-0, yet the way they got there left plenty of frustration behind. After building a 54-31 halftime lead, Penn State nearly let the game slip away as Chattanooga poured in 62 points in the second half and turned it into a two-possession game in the final two minutes.
“When I walked in the locker room, the guys were pissed,” Mike Rhoades said. “They were quiet like they lost.
And that says something about the group of guys we have and their standard for each other. I like that.
We’ve just got work to do.”
That second-half drop-off was the clearest sign of how quickly the game changed. Penn State had looked in control early, much like it did in Monday’s 30-point win over Canisius, but the finish told a different story.
Thomas Allard didn’t sugarcoat it afterward.
“That was not our brand of basketball in the second half,” Thomas Allard said. “We showed what our brand was in the first half, getting off to that lead, and we know what to work on. We're gonna come in tomorrow and Saturday and prepare.”
The biggest issue was shooting, especially from deep. Penn State’s three-point struggles have been showing up since the exhibition against Drexel, and Thursday was no exception.
The Nittany Lions went just 1-for-8 from beyond the arc in the second half after opening 5-for-15 in the first. Across the Chattanooga, Canisius and Drexel games, they’ve shot a combined 19.4% from three.
“We’ve got to shoot it better,” Rhoades said. “We (haven’t shot) it well yet, but the right guys are taking the right shots. Now we’ve got to knock them down.”
Penn State did most of its damage at the foul line, where it was nearly automatic. The Nittany Lions attempted 49 free throws and made 43, setting a new program record for makes.
Josh Reed was at the center of that effort. The fifth-year forward scored a career-high 25 points and hit 15 free throws in the process.
“He's our anchor,” Dasonte Bowen said. “He's the vet here.
He's been here before, and it's kind of expected from him. It was a great game from him, but I think we all expect that from him.”
Even with the shaky finish, Penn State’s staff is treating the game as a useful warning sign rather than a disaster. Rhoades pointed to the value of learning through adversity, especially with tougher games ahead.
“They're high-character guys, so they're going to want more, and they're going to want to move forward and get better,” Rhoades said. “They know for us to be successful moving forward against the schedule that we have, that we can't beat ourselves, and we continue to make that a huge emphasis and work on it.”
The next test comes Sunday, when Penn State faces Pitt at the Palestra in its first Power Four game of the season. Last year, the Panthers overwhelmed the Nittany Lions 80-46 at the Giant Center in Hershey.
This year’s matchup brings a different roster look, with only three returners from that game, but the memory still matters.
“We understand what happened in the Pitt game last year,” Allard said. “We’re gonna be focused on Sunday night, and it's (all) fixable stuff, so we'll be prepared.”
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