Trent Frazier is Macauley Culkin in Home Alone level ready for Hunter Dickinson to show up at his door in Belgrade right now.
We literally just finished watching this movie.
Here's my take on the game:
Once we had gone on our 8-0? run and cut it to 6 points and THEN (with all the momentum in our pocket and the crowd behind us) were about to force a shot clock violation, I leaned over and told my brother, "If Penn State makes this three with 1 second on the shot clock, they are going to win this game."
Moments later, Funk catches and shoots an off-balance, rushed 3-pointer that hits nothing but net. My brother looked at me and I said "Yup, we will lose". They then went on their 50-0 run after that.
After thinking about the game, I realized it was one we simply weren't going to win. Penn State isn't good. They won't be a tournament team or (at best will be a bubble team looking in) and won't play like that again the rest of the season, especially on the road. This will be a seed anchor for us, pulling us off the 4 line to the 5, or the three line to the 4...or the 6 line to the 7. This was like us in the Groce years where we'd have that one game a year against a better team where we couldn't miss. I remember one against Purdue where Malcolm was just on fire...and another against Iowa in the B1G Tourney. It's super frustrating for better teams to run into the lesser-team-buzz-saw.
The difference between last year and this year is the leadership and effort piece BU talked about. Last year, our guys would have dug deep and said "I don't care that they can't miss, I'm playing my game." They never got discouraged, and never gave up. They had leadership on the floor and it permeated through the ranks. Good or bad, the team could lean on that leadership during any situation. Last year's team still would have lost this game, but not by 15.
This year, when the chips were against them, they folded. I think that off-balance 3 was the first
true test of this team's willpower. A bad team comes to your place, and punches you. You respond in the 2nd half because "Hey, we're better than them...they SHOULD wilt away". And when they didn't, and when a circus shot went in, everyone looked around to figure out an answer. Trent was the answer last year. Damonte was the answer last year. Their poise was palpable.
That doesn't exist this year. And until it does (with some offensive flow) we will win a few games we shouldn't and lose a few we should. We are Michigan the last few years, trying to gel with newcomers and out-talent our way through the season.
Without finding consistency in leadership and effort, this team's probably going to be somewhere around 9-11 to 11-9 in conference.
Sorry for the long post.