While the UNC-Wilmington Seahawks came out hot and never cooled off, Talor Battle and the Penn State men's basketball team couldn't get their shots to fall.
The Nittany Lions dropped their opening round game of the Charleston Classic to the Seahawks 80-69 Thursday afternoon. Battle led all scorers with 29 points, but shot just 8-for-23 from the floor.
"We were horrible on both ends of the floor, I'm not trying to sugarcoat it," Lions coach Ed Chellis told the Penn State Sports Network. "Defensively, the first half we were atrocious. They did anything they wanted to do. We gave them confidence. They made some shots."
Overall, the Lions shot poorly from the floor, headlined by 1-for-8 efforts from center Andrew Jones and freshman guard Tim Frazier. However, the Lions stayed in the game by converting their foul shots, finishing 22-of-27 from the line.
The Seahawks made 10 of 17 3-point shots, while Penn State hit only five of 21 for a 23.8 percent clip. Sophomore shooting guard Chris Babb exemplified the struggles, making just two of his 13 shots, 10 of which came from beyond the arc.
"Our perimeter guys didn't shoot the ball really well tonight,"
DeChellis said. "[Babb] just couldn't make a basket, and our other guys didn't make a shot either."
In the second half, the Lions battled their way back, getting as close as 64-62 when Frazier found forward Jeff Brooks for an alley-oop dunk, but the following three plays doomed the team. Two key defensive lapses sandwiched around a missed Babb three allowed the Seahawks to stretch the lead to six.
On the two plays, Seahawks guard Johnny Wolf drove into the lane, drawing double coverage, allowing Wolf to make a pass to an easy basket. DeChellis said the poor defensive effort started on the perimeter.
"If you aren't making shots, you've got to defend people," DeChellis said. "You've got to play smart defensively, but I didn't think we did that when we got the thing in striking distance."
When Battle scored his 13th point of the game, he became the 29th 1,000-point scorer in Penn State history. With the loss, the Lions will face Tulane at 12:30 p.m. Friday. DeChellis said he would have the team watch tape and it would be important to have the players ready for the quick turnaround.
"I don't know if we're going to forget it, we're going to go back and watch the tape," DeChellis said. "I'm not forgetting it, we didn't play very well. We need to figure out what we didn't do. We've got to figure out who we are now."
