ALTOONA, Pa. -- Goodness. That was awful. There's just no sugarcoating Penn State's 81-56 loss at UMass on Monday in the first road game of the Micah Shrewsberry era.
There's very little about this game that Shrewsberry will ever want to remember.
UMass was picked to finish ninth in the Atlantic 10. Its best player is Trent Buttrick, who had a game-high 19 points in this one. He spent four seasons at Penn State and never averaged more than 3.0 points per game, then transferred after last season.
And yet, the Minutemen humiliated Penn State in such a manner that there's really only one takeaway from this game. But I'll give you four here.
1. Is this what Penn State is going to be this season? Because if so ... yikes!
UMass is not very good, folks. It lost its last game to Yale by 20. It shot the ball well in this game, hitting 13-of-29 3-pointers, but that's because Penn State's defense played so poorly.
Penn State's everything played poorly. It was only a four-point game at the half -- 37-33 -- before the Minutemen outscored the Lions 44-23 in the second half.
This was a beatdown of such epic proportions that it really has to make you wonder what's going to happen to the Nittany Lions in the Big Ten. Yes, that's a ways away. And yes, Penn State will get better by then -- we hope.
But the Big Ten is brutal. Absolutely brutal. Everything we judge Penn State basketball on comes down to how this team will fare against the fantastic programs in that extremely deep league.
I tried going through the schedule in the preseason and coming up with games I thought Penn State could win in the Big Ten. It was tough. I found some, stretched things on others and came up with a record of 6-14.
Ummm ... I'm gonna ask for a mulligan.
I asked Shrewsberry what we should make of the 25-point loss, and what he would tell fans who see the score, know the history of Penn State basketball and immediately give up on this year's team. Here's his entire answer:
"If people want to write us off right now, then albeit," Shrewsberry said. "I've been a part of a lot of different teams that lost games early in the year. This is one game. It's one game. But people are free to do whatever they want to do. And this has nothing to do with the history of Penn State basketball. This was UMass playing better than us on this night.
"We're gonna stay consistent in who we are, we're gonna stay consistent in our message, we're gonna try and play as hard as we can every single night. But I don't want people to judge us on this game. And if they do, they're free to do whatever they want to do.
"But this is gonna be a process, we're gonna get better each and every time in this process, and I would like people to be a part of it at the start. I'll still accept you at the end when we do get this thing rolling. But people are free to make their own choices, and if they want to judge us off this game, they can judge us off this game. But we're gonna get better as this season goes on."
2. The one thing this team cannot do is let this awful loss define the season
Again, it's just one game. The second game of the season. The first road game. All teams lay an egg at some point for a game or a half, and Penn State laid a giant egg in the second half.
But the game is over. The next game is against St. Francis Brooklyn on Thursday at the Jordan Center, and that should be an easy win. If it's not, we'll address the further problems at that point.
"Games like this are gonna make us better, and sometimes you gotta sit through a game like this to learn," Shrewsberry said.
Shrewsberry pointed out that UMass had just lost by 20, so he knew it would come out fired up to play.
Now Penn State has a 25-point loss, so we should expect the Lions to bounce back in a big way against St. Francis Brooklyn.
3. Penn State's defense was particularly terrible
"For me, that's the most troubling part," Shrewsberry said. "I didn't think we brought it at the energy level we needed to guard these guys."
That's the kind of thing that will be unacceptable to a coach like Shrewsberry. Yes, he's an offensive coach, but he comes from a Purdue program where tough defense was a staple.
Penn State gave up 81 points, 48 percent shooting overall and 45 percent shooting from 3. Against UMass. The Lions won't beat any teams in the Big Ten if they play that poorly on defense.
The offense is going to have some ups and downs. But the defense will always have to be tough for a program like Penn State to win.
Without injured big man Greg Lee, who has a walking boot on his foot, and Jevonnie Scott (transfer issues), Penn State has such a big hole inside defensively, and John Harrar cannot do everything by himself in there.
The problem in this game was the defensive effort by the guards. It was, in keeping with the theme of the night, awful.
4. Some game notes and observations
Seth Lundy led Penn State with 14 points, while Sam Sessoms had 12. Harrar finished with eight points and 12 rebounds.
They kept making a point on the TV broadcast that Harrar and Buttrick are great friends who roomed together at Penn State for four years. Buttrick clearly got the better of this matchup against his friend and former team.
Jalen Pickett, a Siena transfer, got the start at guard for Penn State and played 34 minutes. He scored only seven points. That's just not going to be good enough for Pickett, who will need to become a more reliable and consistent scorer for this team to win. Because it's going to be hard for the Lions to get a whole bunch of points from a number of other players.
Myles Dread came off the bench, played 26 minutes and had three points. Dread is a senior, a team leader. He has got to find a way to be more involved in the offense and score more points. He just has to.
Buttrick led five UMass players scoring in double digits.
