Penn State's Jalen Pickett drives upcourt while hounded by Maryland's Donta Scott during Nittany Lions' 65-64 win on Sunday at the Jordan Center.AP/Gary Baranec
STATE COLLEGE – So many times Penn State basketball fans have had their hopes raised only to have them dashed. It’s practically a tradition. And Sunday at the Bryce Jordan Center looked like just another such occasion.
The scripts are all a little different, but the ending is almost always the same. Big game. Big crowd. Big dream falling with a big, fat thud.
But this time, it was almost as if a new screenwriter took over and tacked on a ridiculous Hallmark Channel resolution. As Myles Dread put it after what may be his last home game:
“Wow – that was like a storybook ending. I can’t picture it any other way. It was like a movie.”
Yes, it’s true. It wasn’t a dream. The Nits beat Maryland 65-64 on a buzzer-beating stick-back by guard Camren Wynter off a missed Seth Lundy three, before a disbelieving, then delirious crowd. It was a huge victory that stands to be a vital piece in the Lions’ NCAA résumé. They head to Chicago as the #10-seed for a Thursday game against #7-seed Illinois, a team they’ve already beaten twice, apparently needing just one more win to cement a spot in the field of 68.
Camren Wynter hits game-winning shot with :01 left to lift Penn State to 65-64 win over Maryland.Harvey Levine/Lions247
How they did it will go down in PSU basketball annals among the craziest and most unlikely finishes in the program’s history.
After falling behind by 16 points to the talented #21-ranked Terrapins, still behind by 15 well into the second half, the Lions staged a frantic rally behind their trademark 3-point shooting, Dread and Andrew Funk each hit a pair of treys to shock the Lions into consciousness. They made a couple of stops. Lundy hit a reverse lay-in after a missed Funk trey to get it to 62-59 at 2:06.
Then it appeared they had tied it up when Funk bombed in a long jumper from the right corner with 1:24 left. But during a subsequent timeout, the shot was ruled a two.
“To be honest, I kinda knew it was a two,” Funk said afterward. He returned to the huddle and told the coaches a point was coming off the board and PSU would still trail 62-61.
But after Jalen Pickett, usually noted for his offense, walled up on UMD star Jahmir Young (game-high 26 points) and affected his short baseline turnaround that missed, the Lions had a shot at the lead. They took it on a Wynter lay-in off a Pickett feed with 42 seconds left.
Then, they lost it on Julian Reese’s slip of a screen and dive to the hoop, going through a partial block by the flying Pickett to score anyway with just :19 left.
After a timeout in which Shrewsberry diagrammed a couple of options off ball-screen action, Lundy took a pass at the top and fired away from 24 feet. He shot it with confidence. But, with no need to get back on defense, he also followed his shot.
That was good because it rattled off the rim. Careening through the lane, Lundy managed to barge through three Terrapins reaching for the board – probably fouling all of them – and attempted to tip the carom to Wynter who was standing just to the right of the rim. There was no whistle, and no one could’ve heard one anyway. Call it the sort of break that almost never goes PSU basketball’s way.
While Lundy didn’t appear to tip the ball, he influenced its direction through the flailing Terps’ arms and, wonder of wonders, it landed right in Wynter’s lap. He laid it straight in, no glass, before any of the Terps could pogo back up and challenge him.
Though the officials put :00.5 back on the scoreboard and gave Maryland one last baseline heave 60 feet downcourt, it was swatted away by Lundy as the horn sounded for the second, and final, time.
Ecstasy. Hugs everywhere. Pickett, whose mindboggling season has been a few chapters of the Lions’ book all by itself, skipped in the air his arms outstretched. He embraced everyone his random dance encountered.
Dread dissolved in tears as BTN analyst Brian Butch prepared to interview him.
Penn State winger Myles Dread is emotional as he prepares to be interviewed by BTN analyst Brian Butch after the game.PennLive/David Jones
Shrewsberry grabbed the P.A. mic and gave an 8-minute speech to what remained of the crowd. He honored each of the seniors and then thanked the support of the crowd, a hardcore PSU fan base that so often has been disappointed.
He saved his greatest praise for last, for Dread whose ignition of the rally was critical:
“When things get tight, when things get tough, I know exactly who’s going to make that play.”
The coach summed with a preface – to the upcoming Big Ten tournament:
“We’re going to Chicago and we’re gonna play like we did in that second half. We’re gonna smile, we’re gonna have fun, and we’re gonna see what happens.”
Later, Wynter summed his emotions:
“I came here to get to the [NCAA] tournament. The last couple of games that’s been the only thing on my mind.”
Well, it certainly will be now. The Lions are the #10-seed in Chicago and will play #7-seed Illinois on Thursday at 6:30 EST in the second round.
“I feel like we’re peaking,” said Shrewsberry in the postgame session. “I feel like we’re playing our best basketball right now.”
That’s five wins in the last six and a 19-12 overall record, 10-10 in the Big Ten. Though recent results should not affect the NCAA selection committee’s judgment, PSU’s might seep in just a little. And if the Lions can add one win in Chicago, it certainly seems like they are solidly in the field. A loss? They’ll be sweating out Selection Sunday. Either way, the First Four on Tuesday and Wednesday in Dayton looks like a distinct possibility.
All of this looked like a distant dream earlier on Sunday. Of all the junctures in Penn State’s rollercoaster season when making the NCAA tournament seemed a lost cause – notably the end of the 4-game February losing streak, and then the home collapse to Rutgers just a week ago – midway in the second half of this regular-season finale might’ve been the low point.
The Nittany Lions trailed 50-35 with the clock ticking toward the 12-minute mark in a forlorn Jordan Center. They had not been engaged the entire afternoon. They looked weary, frustrated, even confused. They not only had not mustered a rally but there was no sign of one. The patient was losing a pulse.
Hopes of a first NCAA appearance in a dozen years seemed suddenly foolish. The Nits looked not only out of energy but out of options, outmatched by a Maryland team with superior athletes and an un-guardable Young.
Their only hope was somehow getting their 3-point guns smoking. No one in the crowd of 10,672 could have guessed the old sniper who finally got them going, who had barely removed pistol from holster in weeks.
Dread, once the deadliest big-game shooter on the PSU roster, but lately enduring an awful 9-of-43 (.209 3P%) slump in his past 12 games, was that man.
The 5th-year senior had already hit a three, but then missed one. Would that be the end of him? He talked like a pure shooter afterward:
“Make or miss, I can’t let it affect my next shot. So, no matter how many I’ve missed in my past few games, everybody here has faith in me to keep shooting.”
The Lions needed him desperately. And shoot he did. Dread dove from the left corner, something he almost never does, for a lay-up off a Wynter feed. Then he hit another trey from the top to get PSU within 52-45.
That seemed to ignite fellow bomber Funk, dormant to that point. The transfer from Bucknell hit a pair of treys from the right corner and the top to keep the Lions in it at 59-51.
And then Dread followed off a Maryland turnover with his third triple of the half, this one from the left corner, to get the crowd believing. It was 59-54 with 4:17 left and UMD coach Kevin Willard needed a timeout.
It was then that the Terrapins seemed to tighten up and play not to lose, simply handing the ball to Young and letting the senior try to negotiate a shot. They lost their flow. Though Donald Carey managed a drive for a short pull-up in the lane to bump the lead back to 7, that was the Terps’ penultimate hoop for the duration.
Wynter’s golden goal would come soon after. And then there was Dread, the forgotten star, suddenly remembered again, his eyes welled with tears. He’d already cried once before when the seniors received their ceremonial PSU letterman blankets.
“I didn’t expect to be that emotional. It didn’t really hit me until right before they announced my name. … And then, after the game – wow.”
Wow is right. Hard to believe. But the storybook ending was real.
• “Hey, Jones!”: B1G tournament and NCAA predictions, Pickett’s and PSU’s futures, what I’ll miss when I quit.
• Penn State wins ugly, something it has rarely done, in vital victory at Northwestern to rekindle NCAA flame.
• Out of second chances, PSU must shed Rutgers debacle, win at Northwestern, to have any NCAA shot.
• How could deadeye PSU shooters keep missing in epic gag job to Rutgers? Joe Crispin knows how they feel.
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