Picoreplayer won't boot

New user here - followed instructions to flash picoreplayer to a USB stick for my Pi3b after enabling boot from USB. Running the latest 32bit version 8.1. When the pi powers up it shows the four color splash screen and then takes me to a tiny core console without booting picoreplayer. My router assigns an IP and it matches the IP if I check ifconfig but I can't ssh to it. Tried two USB sticks and both have same behavior.
Thanks
Smitty