“On the surface, a 13-point home loss doesn’t look so encouraging. Unless you saw what the Pittsburgh Panthers did to Penn State last year.
“Aaron Johnson had the best seat in the house — the visiting bench at Pitt’s Petersen Center. The PSU center was recovering from a detached retina and couldn’t play. So he had to watch his teammates get intimidated and obliterated, 64-37. They trailed at one point 41-11. His memories:
” ‘Embarrassment. Domination. Outclassed. Just about everything negative you could possibly feel in a game, I felt. And I didn’t even play.’
“Though Johnson’s Nittany Lions lost 84-71 to the Panthers again yesterday, there was no such fear factor. The Lions didn’t always play smartly, throwing the ball away 17 times. But they played hard and well considering their liabilities and actually were in the game late, down a mere 75-67 with free throws coming at the 2:55 mark.
Johnson bricked the front end of a one-and-one and that was pretty much that. But it was about all he did wrong in a 17-point, zero-turnover effort.
” ‘This year, we’re a tough team,’ said Johnson. ‘To beat Pitt, or to be in the game at the point we were in it, you have to be just as physical as they are. To an extent, I think we followed that.’ “