Tunca

UNIVERSITY PARK — The Penn State men’s basketball team spent the final 3:28 on a 16-2 run, including 11 unanswered points in the final two minutes, to earn a gritty 76-68 season-opening victory over Fairfield Monday night inside the Jordan Center.

The back-and-forth battle saw 13 lead changes and 12 tied scores. The Stags owned a 66-60 lead with 3:45 to play, but Penn State battled back to close the game on a 16-2 run, which included the game’s final 11 points.

PSU’s dominance in transition made the difference in the season opener, with the winners rattling off a 22-2 victory in fast-break scoring. The Nittany Lions also relied on a deep bench to pick up the first win of the year, outscoring Fairfield by an eye-popping 41-4 margin off the pine.

Melih Tunca led a four-man armada of double-figure scorers on opening night, logging 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting with a game-high six assists to his credit. Freshman guard Kayden Mingo also mustered an impressive performance in his collegiate debut, finishing with 15 points, five rebounds and a pair of assists in his first official collegiate game.

Freshman forward Ivan Juric logged 13-points on a perfect 5-for-5 performance from the field, while redshirt sophomore guard Eli Rice made his first start as a Nittany Lion and poured in 10 points in 24 minutes of work highlighted by a pair of 3-point field goals. Freshman forward Tibor Mirtic closed the game out strong, finishing with a game-high 11 rebounds in addition to six points, including the game-clinching tip-in layup with 39 seconds remaining.

Mirtic got the scoring started for Penn State at the 16:18 mark with a tip-in layup down low, but Fairfield answered back with a triple to make it 15-2 at the media intermission.

PSU snapped back with a 9-0 reply out of the break, punctuated by an and-one bucket in transition from Mingo to pull back within four. The Stags replied with a bucket on the other end, but a triple from Rice and an and-one basket from Freddie Dilione V deadlocked the game at 17-all at the 10:58 mark of the first.

Fairfield lurched ahead once more with a driving layup, but a straight-away answer from Rice beyond the arc gave PSU its first lead of the night. Mingo added a pair from the charity stripe to put the Nittany Lions up by three, but a left-wing triple from the Stags knotted things up at 22 apiece. Buckets fell both ways over the following three-and-a-half minutes, but a personal 6-0 run from Tunca put the Nittany Lions ahead, 32-29, with four minutes left in the first.

On the other side of the under-four media timeout, Fairfield laid one in just before Mingo notched yet another and-one bucket to become the first Nittany Lion in double figures this season. The Stags were able to rattle off a 6-0 run in the ensuing moments, but a bucket with 30 ticks remaining in the first half from Tunca deadlocked the game at 37-37 at the half.

Fairfield got the second stanza started with a physical bucket down low, but persistence in the paint from Juric saw PSU answer right back on the other end. Juric scored six second-half points in quick succession shortly thereafter, but an 11-2 run from the Stags put the visitors ahead by seven with just over 15 minutes remaining.

The lead changed hands once again, but a split trip to the line from Tunca deadlocked the affair at 56-all with 9:33 to play. Neither team managed a bucket over the next minute-and-a-half, leading to a deadlocked score at the media timeout with less than eight minutes to go. Rice drilled a pair of shots at the free throw line to put the Lions ahead by two, but Fairfield replied with a 3-for-3 trip to the line over a minute later to take a 59-58 edge.

Strong defense and rebounding kept Fairfield off the board on its next trip down, and Mingo delivered a long-range feed up the left side of the floor for Tunca for a fastbreak dunk, but the Stags were able to answer right back with a 7-0 run to take a 66-60 edge.

Juric put a stop to Fairfield’s momentum with his own personal 5-0 run that included a straight-away triple and lefty layup down low. The Stags connected on a mid-range jumper moments later, but PSU rattled off six unanswered to take the lead back, 71-68, with 1:27 to go.

Following a Fairfield timeout, Tunca picked Fairfield’s pocket to get the Nittany Lions the ball back, and Mirtic notched a tip-in layup the next trip down to put Penn State ahead by five. The Nittany Lion defense buckled down the rest of the way, and multiple makes at the charity stripe down the stretch helped close the book on the win.

Braden Sparks led the Stags with 25 points while Brandon Benjamin chipped in with 18 points.

Penn State is at New Haven on Saturday for a 1 p.m. tipoff.

FAIRFIELD (0-0): Benjamin 8-11 2-3 18, Estevez 3-8 0-0 7, Sparks 10-20 0-0 25, Turner 1-10 3-3 5, Wucherpfennig 3-5 3-3 9, Rawlins 0-6 0-0 0, Mejia 2-3 0-0 4, Zan 0-1 0-0 0, Williams 0-5 0-0 0, Munkadi 0-1 0-0 0, Rodriguez 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 27-70 8-9 68.

PENN STATE (0-0): Ciani 1-3 1-1 3, Reed 0-5 0-0 0, Mingo 5-11 5-6 15, Rice 3-7 2-2 10, Stewart 3-3 0-2 7, Tunca 7-11 4-6 19, Mirtic 3-5 0-4 6, Juric 5-5 2-3 13, Dilione 1-7 1-1 3, Blackwood 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 28-57 15-25 76.

Halftime_37-37. 3-Point Goals_Fairfield 6-33 (Sparks 5-12, Estevez 1-5, Benjamin 0-1, Munkadi 0-1, Zan 0-1, Wucherpfennig 0-2, Rawlins 0-3, Turner 0-4, Williams 0-4), Penn State 5-18 (Rice 2-6, Juric 1-1, Stewart 1-1, Tunca 1-2, Mirtic 0-1, Dilione 0-2, Mingo 0-2, Reed 0-3). Rebounds_Fairfield 34 (Benjamin 10), Penn State 38 (Mirtic 11). Assists_Fairfield 10 (Rawlins 3), Penn State 13 (Tunca 6). Total Fouls_Fairfield 21, Penn State 11. A–5,547