Not many people thought Penn State could win a Big Ten game without Tim Frazier putting up a team-high in points. Well, the Nittany Lions did just that last night to get Pat Chambers his first B1G win as head coach.
Sophomore Billy Oliver was absolutely on fire and made it rain, dropping 21 points on Purdue and going 7-11 from downtown to boost Penn State to a 65-45 blowout.
The Great White Hope just took over in this one. First he scored 12 in the first half to give Penn State a 32-18 lead at the break. Then he sank back-to-back threes with four minutes left to wrap up the upset.
The Boilermakers are nothing spectacular but they were 12-3 coming into the game and their only losses came to two ranked teams and last year’s national runner-up. And with the way Penn State has looked so far any win will do.
And this win came pretty easy. For the first time in like forever, the Nittany Lions shot better than 35%. Thank god. It helped that they also held Purdue to under 35% shooting.
The Boilermakers shot just 31.9% from the floor, and the Chambers can tell you, you’re not going to win many games shooting like that. Purdue hit just 2 of their first 10 shots and lucky for them they were both from three-point range.
That helped Penn State jump out to an early 20-8 lead…they never looked back. In fact, the Lions never trailed at any point in the game. That is huge for this team.
Even though Frazier didn’t lead the team in scoring he did go for 15 points and was one assists away from a double-double. He also had a game-high three steals. And Matt Glover led all palyers with 11 boards.
It was a great team win. Everybody contributed and it paid off huge. The Nittany Lions are going to have to duplicate that to even have a chance on Sunday when they host No. 12 Indiana, who oculd be the most underrated team in the NCAA.
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