Roko Prkačin didn’t just make his Penn State debut Monday night. He took over it.
After sitting out both preseason exhibitions while Mike Rhoades said he was “honoring the process” with the international prospect’s eligibility, Prkačin finally got on the floor and delivered a statement performance. The 6-foot-8 forward poured in 28 points as Penn State rolled past Canisius, 97-57, for its ninth straight season-opening win.
The Nittany Lions needed only a few possessions to settle in. Both teams opened by missing their first three shots, then Brant Byers got Penn State on the board with a wide-open dunk. He followed that with a three-pointer on the next trip, giving the blue and white an early jolt.
Prkačin entered as Rhoades’ first sub and wasted no time making his presence felt. He grabbed an offensive rebound and finished inside, then tracked down a loose pass in the air and turned that into another basket. Canisius managed just one field goal in its first six tries before Clinton Efinda and Alex Mack hit back-to-back pull-up jumpers to trim the margin to seven.
That was about as close as it got.
Prkačin answered a Canisius double team by spinning through it and driving the baseline for a thunderous dunk that got the Legion of Blue going. He later picked up two fouls and headed to the bench in the middle of the first half, but even a turnover on his first possession back couldn’t slow him for long. He quickly responded with two tough rebounds and an and-one layup.
Penn State also got a lift from Thomas Allard, who was named a captain earlier in the evening and started in his first game as a Nittany Lion. The Suwanee, Georgia native spent his first four college seasons at the Division II level before transferring in the offseason.
He didn’t take a shot for his first 15 minutes in blue and white, then suddenly found his rhythm by putting back a missed three-pointer from Roberts Blums and drilling a long jumper on back-to-back possessions. That burst pushed his total to five points and forced a Canisius timeout.
The Nittany Lions carried a 47-26 lead into halftime after Nate Fouts hit a three for Canisius, François Wibaut answered, and Ivan Jurić finished inside.
The second half turned into Prkačin’s showcase.
Jurić opened the period with another layup, Byers added a three, and Reed followed with a jumper. Then Prkačin went on a scoring tear, knocking down consecutive jump shots and two layups before finishing a transition feed with a slam.
He wasn’t done there. After a Canisius turnover, he raced up the floor and hammered home another dunk.
Prkačin hung on the rim for a beat, dropped to the floor and let out a scream as Kernkraft 400 played over the Bryce Jordan Center speakers. By that point, he had scored 12 straight Penn State points, and Canisius coach Jim Griffin had seen enough to call timeout.
Wibaut added an and-one for the Nittany Lions, while Jurić later buried a pair of free throws and a smooth jumper before the under-eight media break. Byers then swiped his second steal of the night to start another break, and Prkačin finished it with an alley-oop slam while running stride for stride with the Miami (OH) transfer.
If that still wasn’t enough, Prkačin capped the night with a one-handed dunk on the next possession.
Penn State cruised from there to the first win of Rhoades’ fourth season. The coach emptied deeper into his bench late, giving Reggie Grodin and Andy Gemao their first collegiate minutes. Grodin, a redshirt freshman, scored his first two points on free throws in the closing minutes, then blocked a shot and set up Gemao for his first college basket.
Walk-on guard Grant Spacciapolli and freshman forward Aleksandar Zečević also checked in, and all 14 players on Penn State’s roster saw the floor in the opener.
The Nittany Lions now turn to Chattanooga on Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Bryce Jordan Center to finish the homestand.
In Other News...
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Ohio State is part of a crowded discussion that also includes programs like Notre Dame, BYU, Kentucky and Alabama, which means every placement will be scrutinized for clues about how the committee is thinking. Penn State has its own reasons to pay attention, because the rankings often reveal whether the committee is leaning on record, eye test or the sort of caution that can keep a team from repeating past mistakes once the seasons biggest games start to sort everything out. [Read more 🡒]
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The crowd in attendance also included potential flip targets and other prospects taking in the atmosphere and the way Penn State performed on the field. For a program trying to keep momentum rolling, those kinds of game-day visits matter, especially when the team can point to a convincing league win and the kind of environment recruits remember. The bigger question now is how much that visit weekend can move the needle with the players who were watching closest. [Read more 🡒]