A humiliating loss for PSU basketball
By STEVE HEISER
York Dispatch Sports Editor
It’s never _ ever _ good when you lose to a team with a hyphen in its name.
Lose to North Carolina? No problem. That’s expected.
Lose to North Carolina-Wilmington? That’s a huge problem. That shouldn’t happen.
Yet it did happen to the Penn State men’s basketball team on Thursday afternooon.
And not only did the Nittany Lions lose to the Seahawks, they lost convincingly _ 80-69 in the first round of the Charleston (S.C.) Classic.
This is a huge step backwards for a Penn State program that was riding some serious momentum after last year’s NIT title.
But against UNC-Wilmington, the Lions played absolutely pathetic defense, allowing the Seahawks to shoot 57.4 percent from the floor, including 10-for-16 (62.5 percent) from three-point range. That’s just not acceptable.
The offense was just as bad, shooting 32.3 percent from the field.
That’s a great recipe for losing to a mid-major from the Colonial Athletic Association. And this wasn’t even a decent mid-major. The Seahawks were a miserable 7-25 a season ago.
There’s just no other way to put this _ it was a humiliating loss for a Big Ten program that supposedly has NCAA Tournament aspirations.
Coach Ed DeChellis has a huge amount of work to do.