Undermanned and Overmatched: Penn State Struggles in Lopsided Loss to No. 2 Michigan
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Beating the No. 2 team in the country on the road is a tall order under any circumstances. Doing it with a depleted roster?
That’s a mountain. Penn State arrived at the Crisler Center on Thursday night down to just eight available players, missing key contributors and staring down a Michigan squad that’s steamrolling through the season.
The result was what you might expect when a short-handed team runs into a buzzsaw. Michigan flexed its depth, size, and firepower in a 110-point outburst, handing the Nittany Lions a humbling defeat that exposed the gap between a top-tier contender and a team just trying to stay afloat.
“We’re undermanned,” Penn State head coach Mike Rhoades admitted. “Their size and length really hurt us early, and they got it going.”
That they did. After scoring the game’s first bucket, Penn State quickly found itself in a 15-2 hole, and the Wolverines never let up. The Nittany Lions couldn’t find any rhythm on either end, and without their anchor in the middle, the game tilted heavily in Michigan’s favor.
The absence of 7-footer Ivan Jurić loomed large. The big man had given Michigan all kinds of problems in their first meeting back in early January, dropping 20 points and keeping Penn State competitive in a narrow 74-72 loss. His ability to stretch the floor and punish mismatches was sorely missed.
“Jurić had his way with us up there,” Michigan head coach Dusty May said. “We were looking forward to the challenge of doing a better job on him. He’s strong, he punishes switches, and he made a couple threes against us.”
But Jurić wasn’t the only missing piece. Forward Saša Ciani was also ruled out before tip-off, forcing Penn State to get creative - and small - with its lineup.
That meant 6-foot-8 Josh Reed drawing the start at center, matched up against Michigan’s towering 7-foot-3 Aday Mara. True freshman Justin Houser, who logged a season-high 21 minutes, also had to shoulder frontcourt duties.
The mismatches were glaring. Mara finished with 11 points and six rebounds, while 6-foot-9 forward Morez Johnson Jr. added 12 points and eight boards. Michigan dominated the paint, and Penn State had no answer.
“When we played them at our place, I thought we out-toughed them and outplayed them, but we didn’t win the game,” Rhoades said. “They just beat us in all facets of the game.”
The numbers back him up. Michigan out-rebounded Penn State 44-21 - a staggering margin that led to 22 second-chance points.
The Nittany Lions managed just six in that department. And while Michigan rained in threes, they also carved up Penn State inside, scoring at will around the rim.
“We didn’t stop them either,” Rhoades said. “They got themselves going, and they really scored a lot of points. I mean, they hit a bunch of threes, but they really scored around the basket and that had us leaking.”
That defensive collapse made any offensive game plan irrelevant. Penn State simply couldn’t keep up, and with the Wolverines firing on all cylinders, the game was out of reach early.
Rhoades was candid postgame about the uphill battle his team faced. He acknowledged that to even have a shot, they needed to knock down 10 to 12 threes - and they didn’t come close. The Nittany Lions couldn’t find enough perimeter shooting to compensate for their lack of size and depth.
Now, the focus shifts to getting healthy. Rhoades is hopeful Jurić will be back for the next matchup against USC. Because if this game proved anything, it’s that Penn State at full strength is a different team - but without their key pieces, the margin for error against elite competition is razor thin.
“We knew the situation we were in,” Rhoades said.
So did Michigan. And they took full advantage.