Five takeaways from Penn State’s 79-74 overtime loss to the Wisconsin Badgers

Penn State men’s basketball entered Wednesday night in need of a victory against Wisconsin at the Bryce Jordan Center, but instead the Nittany Lions faltered and lost their third game in a row.

They fell to the Badgers, 79-74, in overtime.

Let’s take a look at five takeaways from the Nittany Lions’ 10th loss of the season.

Pickett struggles from the floor

It’s difficult to blame Penn State’s issues on the player that has carried the program throughout the season, but Wednesday night was one of the least efficient games of Jalen Pickett’s career as a Nittany Lion. He made only eight of his 19 field goal attempts and plenty of those misses came around the rim on post-ups when he had an advantageous matchup.

Yes, he still had 17 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, but making some of those looks from in close could have drastically shifted the game. It doesn’t help that the potential All-American doesn’t get the whistle many other star players do, but as Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry said postgame, he’ll have to try and strike that balance between being physical while avoiding being overly physical if he isn’t going to get calls.

Lundy remains a consistent piece

For all of the negative that has taken place for Penn State over the last three games, there has still been a couple bright spots. Seth Lundy has been arguably the team’s most consistent player this season and that continued against the Badgers. He has the advantage of being able to get his shot off over even the best contests thanks to his high release point, allowing him to essentially whenever he wants. That paid off in a big way again with him making four of his eight 3-pointers, including a contested off-balance shot that he sunk to tie the game at 68 and send it into overtime.

If the team can somehow get trending in the right direction again, it’s a safe bet that Lundy will be a major reason why.

Dread plays limited minutes

Myles Dread has been consistently in the rotation this year for Penn State, but did not make an appearance in Wednesday’s game until there was under four minutes left in the first half. Shrewsberry said after the game that it was his decision to sit Dread for that long and that he wanted to involve other guys, but Dread’s prolonged absence is still noteworthy.

When he did play, he was able to make more of an impact than he had in recent games, boxing out opposing bigs and hitting his only two shots in the matchup. Still, Dread was expected to be a key part of this team and if his role becomes more limited or he’s unable to produce at a high level, which had been the case in recent games, it could have a major impact on how the team plays.

Njie keeps building

The other bright spot aside from Lundy has been freshman Kebba Njie. The young center has seen his fair share of struggles this season, leading to him being removed from the starting lineup and seeing his minutes cut. He began to show flashes against Nebraska of why the coaching staff spoke so highly of him in the preseason, and then built off it Wednesday against Wisconsin. He was more aggressive on the glass, fighting for rebounds and pulling them in over like-sized opponents, and he went up strong to finish around the rim when he had to.

His impact will likely matter more long term than this season, but it’s still a major positive to see some of the upside he has play out after a slow start to the year.

Season on the brink

There is no way around it. The Nittany Lions’ NCAA Tournament hopes are on their last legs. This makes three losses in a row, with two of them coming in very winnable games. Now Penn State must win at least two road games and the rest of its home games in order to get back to .500. That’s the bar for being on the bubble for the tourney and it doesn’t look like one the team is going to meet. Going on the road and beating Minnesota is still likely, but then the Nittany Lions will need to find another away win against one of Northwestern, Ohio State and Maryland. And that’s on top of needing to beat Illinois, Rutgers and Maryland at home.

Penn State’s chances aren’t completely gone, but they almost are.