Post Penn State Win! Ben Johnson on KFAN

[GopherLady]

These are not verbatim, just typing as Ben was interviewed as fast as I can. His thoughts on...

On the 2nd half: We got Elijah back. When he got out of the game, we kind of lost our minds.
Josh's rebound on the free throw, IMO, kind of sealed it
Connected group - you don't come back from being down 16 to win
Parker Fox: From the start, he was locked in. Old man was juiced up today!
Defense: We clamped it a lot better in the 2nd half, thought we were more aggressive, we were just in a better rhythm.
Juice: all the guys kept talking about at timeouts is how we're going to win this game
On break: We're going to give them 2 days off, come back, another day off, then prep for NU
Payne: Huge. He couldn't go today, he wanted to, there was just no way. We can buy him time now. It was like icing on the cake to rest him and get a win.
Hawkins: The good thing is, he set the table earlier so guys were confident when he was out of the game for the first 16 minutes. They had his back and they did it.
Confidence: It has to induce confidence, if they don't believe now, they we have to switch them out, we've got the wrong guys in the locker room. But I think they do. This has to be a confidence boosting win.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Team fell apart in the first half when Hawkins went out with that second foul but holy crap did they turn it on again in the second half.

So many key moments down the stretch.

Mitchell saving the ball after one of Fox's blocks.
JOJ rebounding the Garcia miss and getting an and one of his own.
Hit the free throws to seal it. Just to name a few.

Fox had a great game, such a shame that we were robbed out of the past two years because he plays so hard and makes some great effort plays. That block he had where he ran behind and slapped the ball off the backboard was awesome. He came up big tonight with Payne out.

That pogo stick dunk by JOJ was just sick athleticism. Going to be really interesting to see how he develops because he is a phenomenal athlete who feels like he is just scratching the surface of the player he can be.

Mtichell played one of his better games of the season even though he didn't score a ton.

Penn State is nothing special but winning on the road in the Big Ten is tough and this team badly needed a W.

 

[MaxyJR1]

23-26 from the line.

 

[MNVCGUY]

23-26 from the line.

Helps when Payne isn't out there with his 35% but yeah the free throw shooting was rock solid tonight and one of the 3 misses was snagged by JOJ and led to a putback and and one for him in a huge 5 point possession that really helped put the game out of reach.