Penn State likely will lean on its newcomers Saturday afternoon when they take on Division I newcomer New Haven in West Haven, Conn.
Melih Tunca came off the bench to score 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the floor to pace the Nittany Lions to a season-opening 76-68 victory over Fairfield on Monday.
That was quite the debut for Tunca, who spent last season with Turk Telekom in the Turkish Basketball Super League.
“The pace was different. It’s a quicker style of basketball, but I adjusted pretty quickly,” he said. “This is the style of basketball that I like to play, so it was good,” Tunca said.
Fellow freshman guard Kayden Mingo added 15 points and five rebounds to help Penn State (1-0) rally past the Stags.
“(Tunca and Mingo are) two pretty good players, right? They can handle the ball, they can shoot it, they can get to the rim and finish, they get their teammates shots, they’re talkative, they have moxie,” Nittany Lions head coach Mike Rhoades said. “(Tunca’s) just going to get better and better.”
Freshman forward Ivan Juric made all five of his shots from the floor and finished with 13 points.
New Haven (0-2) followed up a spirited effort in a 79-55 setback to fourth-ranked UConn on Monday with a 71-53 loss versus Columbia on Friday afternoon.
“If we’re going to play Division I, we’ve got to know what it’s all about,” Chargers head coach Ted Hotaling said after falling to the Huskies. “This was an awesome experience for us. … When you play against the best, success leaves clues, and hopefully we got some clues that will help our players understand, ‘This is the level we need to play at every day in practice.'”
Andre Pasha scored 17 points and Najimi George added 14 against the Huskies.
George responded with 15 points and Pasha had 11 versus the Lions, however the pair shot a combined 8-for-26 from the floor.
