State College, PA— Michigan State cruised to a 71-56 victory over Penn State that they lead from start to finish building a double digit lead and keeping it for the final 30 minutes of the game.
Michigan State was led by big man Nick Ward. Ward scored 16 points on only 11 shot attempts. At 250 pounds, Ward is a huge body who uses his size to his advantage in the post. He also does a great job of boxing out. He even showed the ability to hit a face up jumper with confidence. Cassius Winston, had an uncharacteristically careless game with seven turnovers. He came into the game with an assist to turnover ratio of 3.4. Winston made many careless passes that got deflected and lead to Nittany Lion transition buckets. Winston only had 11 points on seven shot attempts. He did lead the team with six assists. Matt McQuaid did a great job of using screens to get free for open 3-point looks. He made four on the day and finished with 15 points. Kenny Goins did a solid job on the glass for the Spartans with 10 rebounds including one on the offensive glass where he skied over a pair of Nittany Lions to wrestle away a board.
Lamar Stevens was able to score 20 points for Penn State to lead all scorers. Stevens does a good job of using his length to shoot turnaround jumpers over defenders. He is dangerous inside the arc but is only shooting 16 percent from 3 on the season. Josh Reaves stuffed the stat sheet for Penn State. He finished with 11 points, four rebounds, nine assists, five steals and three blocks. At 6-5 Reaves is a bigger guard who used his length to overwhelm smaller guards. He turned two of his steals into breakaway dunks in the second half. Myles Dread looks like he will be a force for Pat Chambers in the future. At 6-4 and 215 pounds he has the build to get into the lane and showed that he can shoot the 3 making 3-of-4 on the day. Dread finished with 11 points on the day.
Michigan State (6-0) Big Ten will take on Nebraska in Lincoln on Thursday. Penn State (0-6) Big Ten will host Iowa on Wednesday looking to get their first Big Ten win.
This article was written by Noah Molk, a correspondent and scout for NetScouts Basketball. You can follow us on Facebook, or on twitter.
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