After a dunk by Drexel’s Cole Hargrave cut the Penn State lead to two, Mike Rhoades and the Nittany Lions turned to their vaunted defense to finish the game.
“We didn’t play great today,” said Rhoades postgame.
“But, you know, we talked about the six-minute game the last six minutes of a game we got to own that and find a way to win and put it away and I thought our defense, in the last six minutes, stepped up, got some consecutive stops.”
Penn State only had five more points than Drexel in the final 5:42 of Saturday’s game, but the Dragons were held to one made field goal and forced into three turnovers over that stretch.
It wasn’t a pretty win by any means, but it showed the resilience of this PSU squad, which is now 10-2 heading into the holiday break.
ZACH HICKS MAKES WINNING PLAYS
Zach Hicks has gone a combined 4-0f-14 over the last two games from 3. While these two games are outliers for one of the best shooters in the country, Hicks hasn’t been turned off from making winning contributions.
In Saturday’s game, the 6-foot-7 forward was 1-for-4 from 3 but grabbed six rebounds, dished out six assists and had four steals. One of those steals came right after Hicks nailed a clutch 3 to give Penn State an 11-point edge in the final 1:11 of play.
“I thought he (Hicks) just made some great plays down the stretch,” Rhoades said following the win.
Rhoades has pushed his guys to be about the right stuff, saying, “It’s all about … Penn State getting a victory ….” he told the media back in November.
“I always say, you be all about the name on the front, the name on the back will prosper.”
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.And so far, Hicks has been about the name on the front, leading to his best individual season in his four years of college basketball.
LOCKING DOWN
Penn State forced Drexel into 13 turnovers, the 11th time the Nittany Lions have forced their opponents to go over double digits in that category.
On the season, PSU is forcing 17.3 turnovers per game. A majority of those turnovers are stolen, and Penn State ranks in the top 10 in the country for those as well.
Rhoades wants his team to deny and disrupt with great discipline and Saturday was another example of them doing so.
While Penn State only had eight steals and 13 forced turnovers (both will rank third and second least, respectively, this year), Drexel struggled at times to even get a shot off.
Exhibit A would be the two shot-clock violations in the second half. Exhibit B would be that over the last four minutes, the Dragons only attempted two shots.
Now, Drexel didn’t help its case by playing about as slow as molasses, but that’s just proof that Penn State will make the shot clock an extra defender if you try to control the pace.
If you fail to make the most of the possessions you get, which is fewer than you would hope, you’re at risk of being cornered by the resident hounds of State College.
