Penn State men’s basketball will start to get experience playing against Power Five competition later this week in Florida. The Nittany Lions take on LSU Friday night, then will play either Oregon State or Wake Forest Saturday in the Emerald Coast Classic.
Before that, however, Micah Shrewsberry’s first Nittany Lion team will face its fourth mid-major opponent tonight when it faces Cornell at the Bryce Jordan Center.
This season, the Big Red are 4-0 with wins over Binghamton, Lafayette, Colgate– who upset Syracuse this past Saturday– and Wells College. Cornell’s offense is led by Jordan Jones (16 PPG) and Chris Manon (13 PPG) and has depth, too, with five other players averaging between seven and nine points per game.
A challenge of Penn State, who’s coming off a 74-59 win over St. Francis Brooklyn Thursday night, will be limiting turnovers. Shrewsberry’s goal is for his offense to turn it over no more than 10 times, and in the past two games, it’s turned it over 15 each. Cornell has forced 18, 12, 10 and 21 turnovers, respectively, in its four games.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.The Lions will also look for strong performances out of Sam Sessoms (18.3 PPG) and Seth Lundy (16 PPG). Sessoms had 26 points in Thursday’s win, which is the most he’s had since transferring form Binghamton before the 2020-21 season. John Harrar (12.7 PPG, 13 RPG) also figures to be a factor.
Tipoff is at 6:30. The game can be seen on the Big 10 Network or listened to at any of these affiliates. Steve Jones and Dick Jerardi will be on the call.
