Penn State's NCAA Tournament Secret Ingredient? Joy
Penn State isn't just the oldest team in the NCAA Tournament. It might also be the loosest, which the players proved during and after their 76-59 win over Texas A&M on Thursday.
The Lions won their first NCAA Tournament game since 2001 by deploying their season-long 3-point confidence, unshakable point guard Jalen Pickett and a bond they've tuned over a season of delight and duress.
Now, the Lions faced second-seeded Texas in a Midwest Region game Saturday night not thinking at all about house money.
"We want to go on a run and on a ride, and we're having a blast," head coach Micah Shrewsberry said.
At times this season, particularly during its February swoon, Penn State rode its stress level too highly. Shrewsberry publicly called out players for not playing defense. Some Lions said the losing streak turned in their heads. They felt as though an opportunity was slipping away.
But Shrewsberry and the team flipped that mindset after a four-game February losing streak, leading to this enchanted March run. The Lions have won nine of their last 11 games, including five straight, and are playing with what Pickett called "joy."
The team also now travels with a "Believe poster" straight out of Ted Lasso that they slap before and after games. The poster is getting a workout.
"It was just an energy, joy and a passion," Pickett said the day before the tournament began. "Like, we just won this game in the Big Ten Tournament, we can compete with anybody. That was joy. Everybody was excited for each other and cheering for each other, and we believe that we can play anybody and beat anybody. It's been a crazy ride, and we're still trying to go."
Late Thursday night in Des Moines, Pickett found a way to needle teammate Andrew Funk, whose 27 points set a Penn State single-game tournament scoring record. "Yeah, he's an OK shooter," Pickett said, smiling.
Shrewsberry referenced how long he needed to build this lineup properly by noting that he was unaware that Pickett could post up defenders until halfway through his first season in the program. And Funk liked learning that he was a trending topic on Twitter.
"The Twitter stuff is cool, I guess," he said. "They can do some cool things with my last name, some puns, I guess. But it's fun."
Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams had much less fun, though he did lavish praise on Penn State, Shrewsberry and Pickett in particular. Williams called the performance Penn State's best of its recent 10-game stretch, during which it won eight times.
Williams also said the Lions "completely stressed out" his team's offense, which shot 35.3 percent from the field and scored just six points over a critical 7-minute stretch of the first half.
But Williams couldn't stop raving about Pickett, who had 19 points, eight assists and seven rebounds and left the Aggies powerless. He called Pickett an "elite-level passer" who forces defenses into difficult real-time decisions.
"I think [Shrewsberry] does a great job in how [Pickett] is utilized," Wiliams said. "He has the highest usage rate of any player we've played this year, and as talented as [Pickett] is, his best talent is he makes a decision immediately relative to how you are going to defend him. So that makes the other four players that are on the floor with him even better."
Penn State now turns its attention to second-seeded Texas for a chance to reach its second Sweet 16 in school history. Funk said he grew up watching the NCAA Tournament and missed out on a chance to play in it while at Bucknell.
So like his coach said, Funk wants to continue the ride.
"My four years at Bucknell was a part of why I wanted to come here and help this team get here," Funk said. "So to see it come to fruition is hard to put in words, to be honest."
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