Comeback effort stalls as Drexel men’s team falls to Penn State

While the focus of most Penn State fans Saturday may have been on the College Football Playoff game in State College, Pa., the Nittany Lions’ men’s basketball team squared off against Drexel in a matinee at the Wells Fargo Center.

Penn State (10-2) entered as heavy favorites, but Drexel (8-5) trailed by as few as two points with less than four minutes remaining in the game. The Nittany Lions asserted themselves in crunch time, however, and left with a 75-64 victory.

Yanic Konan Niederhauser had 18 points and three blocked shots to lead Penn State. Yame Butler led the Dragons with 16 points and seven rebounds.

Penn State and Drexel are off to strong starts this season, but the teams have gone about winning much differently.

The Nittany Lions play with the 17th-highest tempo and have the second-highest scoring offense in the nation, while Drexel has one of the slowest offenses in the nation. Penn State coach Mike Rhoades pointed that out as a reason to schedule a game against the Dragons.

“I wanted to play this game because it was a different style of wills and a different style of play,” he said. “I thought we needed to play a game like this.”

Drexel jumped out to a 15-8 lead within the first six minutes. However, Penn State started to find itself and built a 10-point lead with a minute remaining in the first half. The Dragons made 2 of 13 shots from three-point range in the half, while Penn State went 0-for-6 in three-pointers. But the Nittany Lions were much more effective at scoring in the paint, making second-chance baskets, and at the free-throw line. The Nittany Lions led, 37-29, at halftime.

Penn State came into the second half looking to impose its style of play and found success through full-court presses and a relentless attack on the basket. After a frantic five minutes in which the Nittany Lions boosted their lead to 51-38, Drexel began a 10-minute surge to cut its deficit to 62-60 with 4:03 remaining.

Drexel sophomore point guard Kevon Vanderhorst was playing in his third game back from a broken wrist and showed why he was an exciting offseason addition. He had nine second-half points and finished with 14, while demonstrating an ability to attack the defense and create his own shot or set up a bucket for someone else.

“This is a guy who makes people around him better,” Drexel coach Zach Spiker said. “We knew this was possible. It’s why we recruited him, and we’re happy for him to have this game to boost his own confidence, but also I think you can see where we would have loved to have had him for those other games where he [was injured]. He has an element of quickness, and certainly he was able to create his own shot against some pretty talented Big Ten basketball players today.”

Similarly, Butler demonstrated his handles and ability to finish through all kinds of contact at the rim. The senior guard showed that he can bring a different style of offense to the floor when the rest of the team’s long-range shots are not falling.

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The Dragons seemed to run out of steam toward the end of the second half and scored only on four Vanderhorst free throws in the game’s final four minutes.

Spiker said playing Penn State served as a “great challenge to prepare ourselves for conference games.”

“We’ve got a group of guys that compete, and it doesn’t matter who’s on the other sideline. We weren’t playing like we’re in awe of them,” Spiker said. “Our opponent is nameless and faceless every day.”

Up next, the Dragons will return to action against Campbell on Jan. 2 in Buies Creek, N.C., in their Coastal Athletic Association opener (7 p.m., FloSports).