DAYTON, Ohio – The Penn State men’s basketball team dropped a 78-62 road exhibition game at Dayton Sunday afternoon at UD Arena.
The charity exhibition game was held in support of adolescent and young adult mental health and suicide prevention. The exhibition game does not count towards official records or statistics.
The Nittany Lions were down five at the half, but couldn’t get their offense going in the second half to complete the comeback. Penn State finished the game shooting 39.3 percent from the field compared to Dayton’s 48.4 field goal percentage.
Freshman Kayden Mingo and redshirt junior Freddie Dilione V led the Nittany Lions with 16 points apiece. Mingo dished a team-high four assists. Senior Josh Reed and freshman Ivan Jurić pulled down a team-leading six rebounds each.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- The Flyers got out to a 5-0 start before Eli Rice drilled a corner triple at the 16:47 mark to get Penn State on the board.
- The Nittany Lions pulled within two following baskets from Kayden Mingo and Josh Reed that had the score at 9-7, but Dayton answered with 11 of the next 15 points to pull ahead 20-11 with 12 minutes left on the first-half clock.
- Back-to-back buckets from Freddie Dilione V had the Nittany Lions back within five at 20-15.
- The Dayton lead stretched to 10 at 25-15 just over a minute later and the Flyers would stay in front by at least six points until the final minute of the opening term before free throws from Rice and Mingo pulled Penn State within five at 34-29.
- The Nittany Lion defense stepped up to limit the Flyers to just one field goal in the final six minutes of the first half as Dayton controlled a 34-29 lead heading into halftime.
- The Flyers made eight of their first nine shot attempts to open the second half while the Nittany Lions were two for their first 11 attempts and the Dayton lead reached 54-34 just under six minutes into the term.
- Penn State wasn’t able to get its offense going until late in the second half as the Nittany Lions shot just 5-for-20 through the first 13 minutes of the term.
- A 16-4 Penn State run over a six-plus-minute stretch from 7:13 to 1:43 trimmed Dayton’s lead from 27 down to 15, but the Nittany Lions wouldn’t get any closer as the Flyers secured the 78-62 exhibition game victory.
UP NEXT
- Penn State hosts Shippensburg in an exhibition game inside the Bryce Jordan Center on Sunday, Oct. 26. Tipoff is slated for 2 p.m. and admission is free for all fans.