Monday night the Penn State Nittany Lions will play the fourth game of the Micah Shrewsberry Era when they welcome the Cornell Big Red to the Bryce Jordan Center. While the Big Red enter the game with a 4-0 mark it is due to their soft early season schedule.

Enter the season Cornell was voted to finish 7th out of 8 teams in the Ivy League. This game should provide another opportunity for the Nittany Lions to continue to work on improving their offense and finding an offensive identity. Especially with a challenging slate ahead on the schedule.

Scouting The Opposition

Cornell is led by forward Jordan Jones and guard Chris Manon. Jones is shooting 45.8% from the field on the season and 33.3% from three-point land. He is averaging a Big Red best 16 points per game to go with 4 rebounds per game.

Manon is averaging 13 PPG and 6.3 RBP. Manon’s 6.3 RBP are second on the team behind Kobe Dickson’s 7.0 RBP. From the field Manon is shooting 48.6% to go with a 37.5% success rate from three-point range.

Cornell will look to play with pace. The Big Red average 77.3 possession per game which is the 17th most in the country. Meanwhile, the Nittany Lions average just 64 possessions per game which is 320th nationally. The Nittany Lions will have to be ready to deal with the pace Cornell will look to bring to the game which may force Micah Shrewsberry’s squad to play with more tempo than they have through the first three games of the season.

What To Watch For

How will the Nittany Lions handle the aforementioned tempo of Cornell? This will be a good test for the Nittany Lions ahead of a more challenge upcoming slate where they will be tested more with tempo.

This will be the final tune up for the Nittany Lions before starting a tough three game stretch of LSU, Miami and Ohio State. What will Coach Shrews and his staff look to work on? Will we see them continue to look to install offensive schemes in game situations? These will all be things to watch for on Monday night.

Prediction

As we’ve discussed this is one last tune game for the Nittany Lions before hitting the teeth of their schedule. Even if the Nittany Lions are sluggish on Monday night, they will walk way victorious. Penn State 75, Cornell 62