Penn State Basketball: 2019-20 keys for a B1G home win vs. Indiana

Fast starts lead to furious wins

When Penn State is firing on all cylinders, they are a hard team to stop. The road win versus Michigan is the most recent example. In that game, Penn State’s Lamar Stevens scored the first seven points all by himself, connecting on two, two-pointers and a three-point field goal within the first minute and forty-seconds of play. Stevens’ fast start carried over to the rest of the team and the Nittany Lions were off to the races.

Likewise against Maryland, at the 10:33 mark of the first half, the Nittany Lions had a ten-point lead on the Terrapins. They went on to win that game by a seven-point margin. Against Ohio State, Penn State was leading by 11 at the 10:00 minute mark of the first half. The final score was 90-74 in favor of the Blue and White. When the Nittany Lions see the ball go through the basket they bring the juice on defense and that then powers their transition offense.

Conversely, the Wisconsin game provides evidence that when Penn State doesn’t get off to a fast start, things can go off the rails for the Nittany Lions. In that game, I painfully watched brick after brick clang off the iron. Lamar Stevens stanched the bleeding and scored a two-point field goal at the 11:24 mark in the first half. Penn State never got on track offensively in that game and lost by nine-points, 49-58. That game was Penn State’s worst offensive performance of the year.

Does a fast start lead to a win all the time? Of course not. There are two halves in basketball. In the Big Ten, you’ve got to play all forty minutes. The Nittany Lions have suffered through second-half let-downs.