Rutgers dominance on the boards and costly turnovers sink Penn State basketball. Coach Rhoades describes the team's slow start as being "stuck in the mud."
Penn State basketball dropped to the bottom of the Big Ten with an 85-72 loss to Rutgers in front of 6,230 fans at Bryce Jordan Center on Wednesday night.
The 11-15 Scarlet Knights had a similar shooting percentage (57 percent) to PSU (55 percent), but Rutgers won on the boards and had three fewer turnovers in the 13-point contest.
The Nittany Lions went cold from beyond the arc, making 18 percent of their three-point attempts. PSU made just three three-point shots as the team fell to 11-16 on the season.
During his postgame news conference, PSU head coach Mike Rhoades thought his players were ready to go based on their pregame shootaround, but felt his team was "stuck in the mud" getting out of the gates.
"I appreciate everybody coming out," Rhoades said. "Appreciate our students coming out. Tale of two halves. We had a really good shootaround today, and great spirit and shootaround.
"But we must have left it there, because the start of the game just put us in, like we were stuck in the mud and put us in such a hole. 10 turnovers in the first half that led to 19 points was (what) really, really killed us."
Rutgers took a 39-20 lead into halftime. Penn State couldn't recover in the second half.
Rhoades was frustrated with the 15 turnovers that proved costly in the defeat.
"We gave up 28 points off the turnovers," he said. "Their bench scored 28 points. We had trouble guarding the ball with some really bad fouls, a couple late, late offensive rebounds really hurt us.
"You shoot 60 percent at home in the second half, right in the game, but we put ourselves in too big of a hole in the first half."
Penn State's next two games won't be easy.
On Saturday, the Nittany Lions will travel to play No. 9 Nebraska. Penn State will get a small break after playing the Cornhuskers before hosting a 19-7 Iowa program on Feb. 28.
Unless Penn State wins out and goes on a run in the Big Ten tournament, PSU is bound for a second losing season under Rhoades in his third season in State College.