Penn State forward Lamar Stevens scored a game-high 24 points in helping his team shoot a combined 29-of-54 (.537) from the floor in the Nittany Lions’ (13-5, 3-4) 90-76 win over No. 21 Ohio State (12-6, 2-5) on Saturday.
The Buckeyes were led by guard Duane Washington’s 20 points and forward Kaleb Wesson’s 19 points, five rebounds, and four assists.
Andre Wesson added in 12 points on 4-of-7 shooting and 3-of-4 from three-point territory.
Ohio State led for a total of 26 seconds. Their last lead was 4-3 following a layup by Kaleb Wesson with 17:30 remaining in the first half. That lead disappeared 20 seconds later due to a Lamar Stevens three-pointer.
Four minutes later, Penn State built the lead to 14-4 with an 11-0 run, with five of those points coming from Mike Watkins.
Duane Washington stopped the bleeding with a three-pointer to make it 14-7, but the Nittany Lions responded with a 7-0 run, putting the lead well into double figures.
The Buckeyes were able to knock the lead down a bit following a three-pointer and a layup from Kaleb Wesson, making it 23-16 with 6:08 to play in the first half. Three-pointers from Seth Lundy and Myreon Jones sandwiched a three from Andre Wesson. John Harrar added a layup for Penn State to give the Nittany Lions a 33-21 lead with 2:29 to play.
A layup and free throw from Kaleb Wesson got the lead down to 37-27 with 46 seconds remaining, but Penn State answered with a three-pointer from Curtis Jones, and then Myreon Jones stole a bad pass from DJ Carton and was fouled. Jones hit both free throws to extend the lead to 42-27 at the half.
Penn State opened the second half with a basket from Lamar Stevens, but Andre Wesson responded with back-to-back three-pointers to make it 44-33. Myles Dread then answered with a three of his own to build the lead back to 47-33 with 18:06 remaining.
The lead grew to 18 points following a second-chance basket from John Harrar and then a three-pointer from Lundy. A pair of free throws from Duane Washington dropped it down to 52-36, but a dunk by Harrar and another three from Izaiah Brockington gave PSU their first 20-point lead at 56-36 with 15:10 to play in the game.
Ohio State answered with a 6-0 run via two free throws from Luther Muhammad, a dunk from Kaleb Wesson, and two free throws from Duane Washington. The Nittany Lion lead fluctuated for the rest of the game between 13 and 18 points, with no run ever coming from the Buckeyes.
Up next for Ohio State is a home game against Minnesota on Thursday at 6:30 pm.
Box Score
This team is snake bitten. Injuries, illnesses, suspensions. Hard enough to weather the storm with just one of these issues, but all three? You can argue CH has culpability for the issues related to suspensions, but not the other two. No need to get ahead of ourselves, this season is not over. Other teams have won it all with more losses.
Out muscled – look at the size of our players arms vs. every opponent we play. Nick to get Coach Mick involved – Kaleb is a joke under the basket.
One needs to ask how OSU excelled the past two years with previous talent and now are B1G bottom dwellers with mainly CH players. I see this team struggling to make the dance and are NIT worthy. Give CH one more year and time to move on.
This team is bad! Selfish play, bad shooting, and bad turnovers! The anomaly here was actually beating Kentucky, Villanova, and UNC. NIT team… AT BEST!
how this is the same team that beat villanova by 25, beat kentucky, beat this SAME penn st team by 8 million…is beyond me–there’s got to be something going on we don’t know about because this is the most lopsided turnaround i may have ever seen in the same season.
I’m as disappointed as anyone but I’m not about to throw Holtman under the bus. Our offense is lacking and we just can’t score around the basket (including Kaleb Wesson) and that kills us. . . . along with our ridiculous rate of turnovers . . . mostly on high risk/low reward passes. We just have too many recruits who aren’t contributing and some whose performance fell way off once we got to the B1G.
However, PSU shot 54% overall and 47% on 3 pointers in spite of playing pretty good defense most of the time. PSU has more good strong athletes and they just couldn’t miss today.
This is about what I expected. You are right on the gambling pick. My hope now is that the Buckeyes escape the bottom 4. but where are the wins going to come from? Losing to Wisconsin at home said it all.
Revise contract now and end it next year if not turned around. Everything in the locker room or outside is his responsibility. Way way overpaid for these embarrassing losses and overall team behavior. I would rather lose every game with effort and discipline, not part of this team. I am not sure this was a good fit.
There are major internal issues going on that we’ve not yet been made aware of. It’s really sad that selfishness rules a Buckeye locker room.
Man I don’t know what happened to this team but it is sad!I thought this coach was good.Never saw a Buckeye team start out so good then fail miserably,will have a hard time finishing 500
CH is as much to blame for this current mess.
For the gambling degenerates, you couldn’t find an easier pick in any sporting event than Penn State in this one. THEY WERE GETTING A POINT…..you’re kidding me. Too many reasons to list why this was a gimme!