Penn State men’s basketball finally got a win, folks.

After a month and a half of grueling losses and only tallying two wins since the New Year, the Nittany Lions are back in the win column after their 89-72 dominant win over Nebraska on Wednesday night.

The Nittany Lions looked like the team that started the season 12-2. They were fast, explosive, tenacious, and most importantly, relaxed.

“Sometimes it’s just playing with a clear mind, and if you play with a clear mind, that ball gets moving,” head coach Mike Rhoades said postgame.

Penn State played well all around. The Nittany Lions shot 60.7% from the field and 34.8% from three, missed one free throw, and nabbed 11 steals. The re-emergence of Yanic Konan Niederhauser and the full-court press also helped as Nebraska’s only score in the first five minutes was a blocked layup that was ruled a goaltend.

“I think [the press] shifted [momentum] a lot,” D’Marco Dunn said. “I think we made them uncomfortable to start the game. I feel like we set the tone.”

Freddie Dilione V scored 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting, but it was his on-ball defense that made the biggest impact.

“We had to find different ways to get going here and create some juice, and the press did that,” Rhoades said. “I thought Freddie’s defense today on the ball and pressure in the full court, and even in the half court, was huge. I said that was the number one on the list today of, ‘Freddie, if you do this, we will get off to a great start.’ And he did.”

The early momentum resulted in Penn State forcing four steals and scoring eight points off those turnovers as the Nittany Lions jumped to a fast 12-2 lead. The hot start continued until halftime as Penn State scored 50 first-half points for the first time since it beat Coppin State 99-51 in mid-December. The Cornhuskers’ 27 first-half points were the lowest since its low-scoring 66-58 win over UCLA on January 4.

“When you get down by 20, do you know how much energy it takes to dig yourself out? That’s what happened the other day against Northwestern,” Nebraska’s head coach Fred Hoiberg said after the loss. “You’re living so dangerously when you dig yourself in that kind of hole.”

Nebraska improved after halftime by outscoring Penn State 13-6 over the first four minutes, but the Nittany Lions got hot again when Dunn hit a three before the first media timeout.

Dunn hit another three and Zach Hicks caught fire from outside the arc with three made three-pointers while Nebraska kept hurling threes attempting to mount a comeback. The Cornhuskers pulled up 21 times from deep and made seven. Connor Essegian knocked down four three-pointers as he led his team in scoring with 20 points.

As for Penn State, Hicks and Konan Niederhauser each led the Nittany Lions with 19 points and Dunn followed with 17. Hicks was 5-for-9 from deep as Konan Niederhauser lived in the paint, shooting 7-for-10, and Dunn shot well all-around as he made 7-for-9 from the field and 3-for-5 from three.

“I think we just stuck with our habits in the first half. I think we played a full 40 minutes. I think our talk and our energy increased, and that was an emphasis last practice,” Dunn said.

It was Konan Niederhauser’s best performance, statistically, since he sprained his ankle a few weeks ago and missed two games. The Nittany Lions got him involved early by feeding the ball down low and even gave him an alley-oop opportunity.

“I thought he did a really good job following the scouting report of how we wanted to get home the ball and where,” Rhoades said. “He did a good job of that.”

Hicks said Monday that this team still has lots of fight in it and was focused on winning the next five games for a chance to make the Big Ten Tournament. The Nittany Lions still sit in last place in the conference standings, but with one win down, winning the next four games, along with some help, could land Penn State in Indianapolis in March.

However, Rhoades is focused on one game at a time rather than looking ahead but remains optimistic.

“We played the right way, and I think if we played a lot of teams in our league tonight, we could have had maybe a good outcome,” Rhoades said. “If you wake up in the morning and go to work, anything could happen.”