We Played the Penn State Nittany Lions, Some GOOD, BAD, and UGLY Things Occurred. Supply Your Own Pith

Goooooooood evening AU fans! Well, no surprises here my friends, the Penn State Nittany Lions (by the way, what in the name of all that makes Jeff Jones angry is a Nittany Lion?) handed our AU Eagles their 10th loss of the season. Well, I shouldn't say no surprises. I was a little surprised that we were only down by 6 at the half. Let me tell you what I wasn't surprised by. I wasn't in the least surprised by the 15-1 run that PSU started the second half with. I was going to save this for Thursday's Open Letter to Jeff Jones, but I feel it can't wait, so let me give you a little sneak peak.

"Dear Jeff Jones,

I'm not sure exactly what you do or say to our Eagles at halftime that makes them come out EVERY SINGLE GAME sluggish and awful at the beginning of the second half, but for the love of all that makes you angry and profane, please stop doing it. Make them sit on the bench for halftime or something. Anything to keep them focused on the game, which is apparently the antithesis of whatever is going on in the locker room at halftime.

Love and kisses,
Barechested Bender Bill"

Oh, and JJ? Here's your dose of the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY for the Penn State game.

THE GOOD

Nick Hendra, ahem, NICK HENDRA - Nick tied Vlad the Impaler with a game-high 17 points. Nick did it in a much more efficient fashion, though. 6-9 from the field and 4-4 from behind the arc. He did go 1-4 from the line, but I'll look past that (THIS TIME). He also kicked in 2 each of rebounds, assists, and steals and only turned it over once in 32 minutes. Nick has definitely broken out of his early season funk. Keep it up, Hendra. And hell, if you want to oblige the kid who sits three rows back of me who always whines, "DUNK IT HENDRAAAAA," I say go for it. I am so sick of hearing him say that.

Vlad the Impaler - At some point, Vlad will end up in the bad column, I can promise you that. It's a rite of passage or something. Probably not. Anyway, Vlad, in his first week as an eligible AU Eagle, picked up Patriot League/Anaconda Player of the Week honors. Aside from that, he had a pretty good night tonight. If you're looking at just total points he had a really good night: tying with Hendra for game-high. But he did it on 5-14 shooting. He also rushed some shots instead of looking to make the pass, and he hasn't looked good maneuvering on the inside. I haven't really seen him drive toward the basket yet, and if he's going to step into Brian Gilmore's shoes the way he's already donned his jersey, he's going to have to pick it up with driving inside. Vlad did have a sick 3-point bucket as the shot clock expired where I swear he couldn't see the basket from where he was. Marvelous. I think he's still working into it on some things, but tonight was a good column-worthy performance.

Stephen Lumpkins - I know I've been giving Lumpkins a lot of grief in recent weeks, but tonight is the kind of line I will never, ever criticize. 10 points on 5-11 shooting with 9 rebounds? Yes and yes. Way to go, Lump.

3-point shooting: 8-16 (helped out considerably by Hendra) would've kept us in most of our games earlier this season. Unfortunately, we weren't playing a ragtag crew tonight and it didn't do much to help us out.

Jordan Borucki, Daniel Fisher, Jeff Holton - Nice to see you guys get some minutes tonight. I know it's tough to be in a losing season and not even get the minutes to try to affect some change. Here's to hoping we get to see some more of you soon (in some games where we have 20 point leads).

Joe Hill - Drained a nice 3-pointer from the corner in the closing minute of the game. He's now 2-2 from 3 this year and 3-6 from his career. Jeff, put Joe and Bersch out there to try to beef up the perimeter game. At least look Joe's way more often, eh?

12 turnovers - Pretty solid against a team that pressed us for a lot of the game and played staunch defense. Overall very good ball security.

THE BAD

Rebounding - As good as we were rebounding last night, we got killed on the boards tonight. At one point we were being outrebounded 13-5. The final margin was 36-25. No good. Doesn't help with second chance points, and with a team like PSU, you know you're not always going to get the best first shot possible.

Blake Jolivette - I'm a big fan of Blake Jolivette. I think between he and Danny right now he is the better choice. He looks more comfortable out there. I think he sees the court better. He penetrates inside better. With that said, there are some nights when he makes freshman errors because, WOW SHOCKER, he's a freshman. Tonight was one of those nights. 5 turnovers to only 1 assist and only 4 points on 2-7 shooting.

Shooting in the second half - 10-29. Ugh. So much of that was in the first four minutes, too. We had a chance coming out of halftime, and the cold shooting just buried us.

THE UGLY

The 15-1 run that PSU went on to open the second half. Seriously, see the letter to Jeff Jones above. WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE SECOND HALF SLUMPING?! It's not even like "ha ha we open the second half of every game awfully." It's literally EVERY GAME where we give up runs like this. Good Lord.

That's it for tonight folks. Please let me know what you thought of tonight's game in the comments. We'll post a special holiday message from Eddie Jackson tomorrow and then go on a little holiday hiatus until Monday when we get the Florida Gators. What a great time that will be.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!