Penn State 67, Notre Dame 59

It's been a really long season.

Fair play to Penn State. I really doubted them and still don't think they're all that great. Still, the Lions deserved to win and really outplayed us tonight. I wish the Irish could have made one of their seven or eight wide open layups to make this competitive, but it was not to be. A really poor offensive showing throughout.

Thanks to the guys for working to make it competitive and showing some heart down the stretch, but the outcome was really never in doubt. A Kyle McAlarney layup (why he froze under the basket with no defenders within sight, I'll never know) and a Ryan Ayers three pointer would have cut the lead to one with over three minutes left. Unfortunately, it was not to be. When you shoot under 25% in the first half, you really don't deserve to win.

Tory Jackson was pretty good tonight. 9 points, 5 assists, no turnovers. Kyle McAlarney missed a bunch of chances near the basket and was the culprit on a few of those missed layups. Ryan Ayers was ice cold. 1-7 from the arc really killed us. Zach Hillesland had 2 points and 6 rebounds and was 1-5 from the field. Luke Harangody bounced back from a completely awful first half to finish with 17 and 10 on 5-16 shooting.

Off the bench, Jonathan Peoples provided a couple nice threes to keep it respectable. 8 points for him. Ty Nash had 7 rebounds before fouling out. Luke Zeller had 8 on 2-5 from beyond the arc. Carleton Scott made a three pointer in less than a minute of playing time, making you wonder why he hasn't seen any more action this year.

33% shooting for the team. That just killed us. Penn State played pretty solid defense, but the Irish shot themselves in the foot over and over. As you may have noticed, this was a pretty short recap. I'll try to knock out the year-end stuff tonight as well.

Penn State Preview

Penn State-
Pomeroy Ranking- 64th
Record- 25-11 (10-8)
Quality Wins- Purdue, Michigan, @ Michigan State, Illinois (x2), Florida
Bad Losses- None
Common Opponents- Lost to Ohio State 73-59, Beat Indiana Three Times
Pomeroy Projection- ND 72-68

Key Players-
#12 Talor Battle- 5'11", 165 lbs.- 16.8 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 4.9 APG, 34.9% 3PA
#2 Jamelle Cornley- 6'5", 250 lbs.- 14.2 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 40.4% 3PA
#11 Stanley Pringle- 6'1", 180 lbs.- 12.9 PPG, 2.9 RPG, 47.0% 3PA

Scouting Report-
Don't turn the ball over (19th).
Don't allow offensive rebounds (21st).
Don't allow many trips to the line (2nd).

In case you were wondering, here is what a preview for the Irish would look like:

Notre Dame-
Pomeroy Ranking- 33rd
Record- 21-14 (8-10)
Quality Wins- Texas, Georgetown, Louisville, UAB, New Mexico, Kentucky
Bad Losses- St. John's

Key Players-
#44 Luke Harangody- 6'8", 255 lbs.- 23.5 PPG, 11.8 RPG, 36.1% 3PA
#23 Kyle McAlarney- 6'0", 195 lbs.- 15.1 PPG, 3.4 APG, 42.6% 3PA
#2 Tory Jackson- 5'11", 193 lbs.- 10.6 PPG, 4.9 APG, 4.5 RPG, 36.4% 3PA

Scouting Report-
Don't turn the ball over (2nd) or get it back on defense (343rd).
Great three-point shooting team (18th).
Don't get to the line very often (336th).

View From the Opponent's Bench, Part II

Thanks again to Devon Edwards from NittanyWhiteOut.com. Check out his site and read his answers to the questions below as we prepare for Tuesday's game.

Who besides Talor Battle do the Irish have to worry about and what will Battle bring to the table on Tuesday (besides his own web site)?

Well, Penn State relied all season on their "big three," Battle, guard Stanley Pringle, and power forward Jamelle Cornley. Each bring a different aspect of the game to the forefront. Battle, our all-big ten point guard, is without a doubt Penn State's best all-around player, who excels both from behind the arc and in driving to the hoop. He's really good at sucking in the defense and finding an open Nittany Lion for a quick two. Pringle is a lights-out three point shooter (48% from the year, tops in the Big Ten), who is a phenomenal on-the-ball defender, and can drive if given an inch. Cornley is listed at 6'5, but is probably closer to 6'4. That said, he's an absolute beast, checking in at around 240 pounds of pure muscle. That alone makes him a phenomenal inside presence, but he's one of the toughest mo-fo's in the NCAA. He just doesn't know the definition of giving up. He's also a pretty nifty shooter from outside and can create his own shot on occasion, though it looks really ugly.

38-33, seriously? Convince me that's good defense and not just terrible basketball.

Well, the Big Ten brand of basketball tends to favor low scoring games, and it's mainly due to the molasses-slow tempo that our teams tend to favor. Take our teams out of the conference, and you see that they're better scorers than they look. For instance, Penn State didn't top 73 points in conference, but bested that number nine times in non-conference play. That said, watching that game was absolutely painful, even for a fan of the winning team. It's not unusual for a couple shooters on a team to have an off-day, but both teams were having off days. They shot a combined 6-33 from downtown, and not much better from inside the arc. But the fact that Illinois shot a grand total of zero free throws shot by Illinois tells you that if Penn State didn't play lock-down defense, then the refs weren't calling much.

How good do you think the Big Ten was this year and how many bids did they deserve?

I think the Big Ten deserved every one of the seven bids it got, but it's very interesting to look at the breakdown of the bottom few teams in the conference that made the tournament. You look at Michigan and Minnesota and you see three phenomenal pre-conference wins, against UCLA, Duke, and Louisville, but little else. Then you take a look at Penn State and see that we really cleaned up against the top few teams in the conference (4-2 against Michigan State, Purdue, and Illinois). I'm not too bitter that we weren't in the tournament, but I feel like Penn State deserved to be in. As far as the top few teams, there's not a lot of elite teams, but Michigan State is, as you see, an elite eight team, and Purdue might have been the same if it weren't for a tough matchup with UConn. Illinois was probably overrated throughout the year, but I do think we were the second best conference, top to bottom, next to the Big East.

What do you think the Lions need to do to win on Tuesday?

Penn State has a very athletic team, and some very decent depth, so the key to winning and advancing to the NIT Finals will be running up and down the court and beating Notre Dame in a high scoring game. If we can push the tempo, create fast breaks, and force turnovers, like Penn State did against Florida, I don't think there will be too much resistance. Frankly, I think Penn State matches up well with the Irish, because we tend to guard the three point line well, and Cornley, small as he is, is a tough body to move in the low post. Penn State is at their best in an up-tempo game, which tends to implement itself in close games or when trailing. Almost all of Penn State's big wins came after a double digit deficit, because once Penn State gets up they tend to hold the ball for 30 seconds and jack up a three. If they can keep the intensity up for 40 minutes, well, I think that Notre Dame should be an easier beat than Florida. not to mention Michigan State.

View From the Opponent's Bench, Part I

We haven't done one of these this year, but Devon Edwards from NittanyWhiteOut.com has been very kind in working with me to preview Tuesday's game. My answers to his questions are here:

You said, " I really think they have been overrated this season and like our chances of getting to the finals." Don't you think you're overlooking a team that has wins over Michigan State, Purdue, Illinois, twice, and Florida?

I'm a big Ken Pomeroy fan and study his rankings far more than I follow the RPI. His rankings have Penn State 67th, far lower than our previous three NIT opponents (43rd, 36th, and 49th). There are a few reasons for this. The Nittany Lions don't get a high percentage of blocks or steals on defense and give up a pretty high field goal percentage inside the arc. Andrew Jones, the most likely candidate to cover Harangody averages less than six points and rebounds per game. He'll struggle against a guy who has cut his teeth against the likes of DeJuan Blair and Hasheem Thabeet all year. Penn State has a few good wins and only one bad loss in Iowa, but overall I don't see the strength of schedule. Florida was no better than the three teams we beat to make the semis. You matched up well with a good Michigan State team, but so did we against a better Louisville squad (sent them to OT in the first meeting, laid a whooping on them in South Bend). Purdue figured y'all out in the second meeting. As for Illinois, I watched some of that 38-33 game and just saw bad basketball. Sure, there are some great defenses in the Big Ten, but Penn State ain't one of them.

Looking over the stats, Notre Dame is ranked second to last in the Big East in steals, and last in blocks. Do you guys play any defense?

No is the easy answer. For some reason (the departure of our best assistant coach, the graduation of a good all-around player in Rob Kurz, or otherwise) this year's team decided to take it easy on defense. It's worse that previous Mike Brey-coached teams. Our zone is very ineffective and we have gotten lost a few times in man-to-man. Frankly, it's embarrassing that such a veteran squad could be so inept in half of the game. Part of the reason is our tendency to recruit unathletic players who can shoot. Only one guy (Tory Jackson) has the quickness to stick with a majority of players at his position. We have gotten a bit better in the postseason, but defense will still be an issue Tuesday.

What happened in that seven game losing streak?

It was a tough schedule and we just crecked under the pressure. Seven games, including three against #1 seeds, all but two away from home. Had the schedule been a little more evenly spread out, we could have won one or two of those. As it is, we let an overtime loss to Louisville get us down and didn't recover for a month.

Basically, it seems like the Irish are a bunch of slow unathletic white guys who can shoot, and Luke Harangody. Why am I wrong?

No, you're right. Luke Harangody fits that description, as well. Our point guard, Tory Jackson, is the only one who can take a defender off the dribble. The rest of the rotation (expect Hillesland and Nash) and very good shooters. Mac and Ayers three-point threats, but not much more. Harangody has a very good midrange game that will help him in the pros and can hit the open three (a recent development). Off the bench, Luke Zeller is a seven foot shooting guard and Jonathan Peoples has been known to hit a couple clutch three pointers.

Thanks to Devon for being a good sport. We should have his answers to my questions about the Nittany Lions tomorrow.