Penn St. Nittany Lions vs Rutgers Scarlet Knights Match Player Stats On Mar 06, 2019

Lamar Stevens scored 18 points, freshman Myreon Jones came off the bench to add 13 and the Penn State Nittany Lions barely held on to turn back the fast finish of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights 66-65 in their Big Ten Conference matchup in Piscataway, N.J., on Wednesday night.

Eugene Omoruyi scored 23 points, including the first basket of the game to give Rutgers (14-15, 7-12 Big Ten) its only lead of the game at 2-0.

Freshman Ron Harper Jr. added 14 points, all of them in the second half as the Scarlet Knights had a chance to win at the buzzer but missed two shots and a third one was blocked by Penn State's Josh Reaves before time ran out.

The Nittany Lions (13-17, 6-13) scored the first two points of the second half to raise their lead to a game-high 20 at 39-19, but Harper and Omoruyi kept the Scarlet Knights in the game.

A Harper layup cut the deficit to 45-36 with 14:29 left. Penn State quickly pushed the lead back to double figures, where it stayed until the last six-plus minutes.

A 7-0 run featured two free throws from Omoruyi, a Myles Johnson dunk and a Harper steal and 3-pointer to cut the lead to 60-55 with 6:24 left.

Later, Josh Reaves of Penn State hit a 3-pointer to raise the lead back to 66-60, but Rutgers' Caleb McConnell hit one as well to make it 66-63 with 2:29 to play.

A tip-in by Rutgers' Johnson cut the deficit to 66-65 with 1:35 left, but neither team could muster any offense from there.

Penn State, which found the shooting range in the first half but struggled in the second half, shot 39.4 percent from the field and 7 of 17 on 3-pointers, while Rutgers bounced back from a terrible start to finish at 37.9 percent.

The Scarlet Knights missed their first 12 3-pointers before finishing 4 of 24.

The teams combined to hit just 6 of 28 field goals and 1 of 11 on 3-pointers in the first 9 1/2 minutes, with Penn State shooting 23.5 percent from the floor and Rutgers only 18.2 percent.

--Field Level Media