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

Consistent play for all 40 minutes

Penn State Basketball has the tendency to go through scoring droughts. Fans of the program have come to expect these scoring lapses and have dubbed them “patented scoring droughts”.  One of the main identifiers of this type of play is perimeter passing which leads to a last-second, low-percentage, rushed shot. There is usually a lot of meandering, dribbling and weaving along the perimeter of the defense. Crisp passing and ball-movement are distant memories and attacking the rim go by the wayside. Compared to the previous year, there have been far fewer of these scoring lapses. The key reason for that is Penn State’s bench. However, these patented scoring droughts do occur. Let’s look at the loss at Rutgers for a breakdown.

In the first half at Rutgers, Penn State got off to a good start. At the 10:00 mark of the first half, they were leading the Scarlet Knights by eight points. At the end of the first stanza, Penn State still clung to a five-point lead (33-28).  Beginning in the second half of play, Penn State didn’t score until the 16:51 mark on a pair of Lamar Stevens’ free-throws. That’s 3:09 seconds of scoreless basketball to open the half. Any coach will tell you that the first few minutes of each half sets the tone for your team. After Lamar’s charity stripe points were registered, Penn State didn’t score again until the 13:43 mark, which was a two-point jump shot by…Lamar Stevens. At the 10:00 minute mark, the Nittany Lions scored a whopping total of eight-points. I could go on, but you get the picture.

So, what’s the answer to these scoring droughts? Penn State has to value each and every possession and look for a high-percentage shot through the first 23 seconds of the shot-clock. When the ball is stalling in the back-court with the dribble-weave to nowhere, setting some good screens and off-ball movement may create a mismatch that the team can exploit.

Getting Mike Watkins, Lamar Stevens or John Harrar the ball in the high or low-post can cause defenses to collapse on a double-team, which opens up cutting lanes and the inside-out game for an uncontested three. The key is not to commit any turnovers when the defense collapses by allowing a tie-up or an errant pass. Hard cutting by off-ball players as soon as the defense starts to collapse will give the post-player time to make a clean pass.

We have established that Penn State needs a fast start, they need to play a full forty minutes and nip scoring droughts in the bud. What’s next?