Penn State men’s basketball lost a heartbreaker to No. 13 Ohio State Wednesday night to snap a two-game winning streak.

For much of the first half, it felt as if the Nittany Lions should have been nowhere near the Buckeyes. However, many factors led to interim head coach Jim Ferry’s team making it a game in Columbus, including sophomore Seth Lundy.

Lundy had yet another star game in his second season. In the loss, the Philadelphia native led all scorers with 26 points in 38 minutes played.

Penn State fans knew of Lundy’s potential earlier in the year when the sophomore dropped a career-high 32 points against VCU and followed up with 23 in an overtime loss to Seton Hall.

Lundy’s torrid offensive form then tapered for the rest of December but has come back with a vengeance after the prolonged coronavirus break.

“I feel really good for him. It’s not really about me or my confidence in him, it’s about Seth,” Ferry said. “He’s putting in the time. I know what it is like to go cold as a shooter. It’s a confidence thing and you gotta just keep playing through it.”

Ferry wasn’t only impressed with Lundy’s scoring ability in the loss. Penn State forced Ohio State into 17 turnovers and won the battle of the offensive boards 11-10, and Lundy was integral to all of it.

“He’s also doing other things,” Ferry said. “He got four rebounds tonight, he got to the foul line which is good for us.”

The end result was a gut punch for the Nittany Lions, although it doesn’t get any easier from here on out. Ferry’s men will have to rebound on Saturday when Penn State begins a two-game series with No. 10 Wisconsin.

According to kenpom.com, the Badgers have the seventh-best defensive efficiency in the nation. The Nittany Lions will need to come out hot, both at home and in the return leg in Madison on Tuesday, and Ferry knows exactly who Wisconsin will have its eye on.

The results may be hard to come by in the Big Ten, and Penn State is without a Lamar Stevens-type winner, no matter what Lundy has done in the past few outings. It may not be the sophomore taking the headlines in the next game, and the Nittany Lions must be ready for that.

“Now he is right back to the top of the scouting report so he has to be ready for that,” Ferry said.”It’s the next man up mentality, and I think our guys have handled that really well with injuries when we have them. [We are] playing unselfishly, and getting the ball to the hot hand. That’s how we have to continue to play.”