Penn State basketball's Big Ten Tournament matchup set
Penn State Nittany Lions basketball will take on Minnesota Wednesday in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.
The game will start 25 minutes after the conclusion of the first contest that day, which begins at 7 p.m., and will air on the Big Ten Network.
The Nittany Lions settled for an 11th-place finish in conference play following a loss to Rutgers Sunday afternoon. Micah Shrewsberry finished his first regular season with a 7-13 record.
Penn State takes on the Gophers
The Nittany Lions and the Gophers split their two regular-season contests this season, with each team taking care of business at home.
Minnesota closed out the season on a four-game losing skid, dropping six of its last seven, including a 67-46 Penn State win at the Bryce Jordan Center.
Ben Johnson, also a first-year head coach with the Gophers, sounded a critical note over his team’s effort in that game.
Likewise, when Minnesota got the better of the Nittany Lions on February 12, Shrewsberry was displeased with how his team defended.
KenPom’s analytics rate Penn State as the No. 91 team in the country, with Minnesota coming in at No. 107.
The path forward
Should the Nittany Lions get the better of the Golden Gophers on Wednesday, they would get sixth-seeded Ohio State.
The Buckeyes concluded their Big Ten schedule with a 12-8 record, following a loss to Michigan on Sunday. They took both games they played against the Nittany Lions this season.
In the event Penn State makes it beyond the Buckeyes, it would take on third-seeded Purdue.
The Boilermakers went 14-6 in Big Ten play and beat the Nittany Lions at the Bryce Jordan Center.
PSU comeback at Rutgers falls short
The Nittany Lions lost their ninth game of the season by six points or fewer out of 13 games decided within that margin, falling 59-58 at Rutgers Sunday afternoon.
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Just to get into that position, though, required one of PSU’s best stretches of the season.
Trailing by 10 with 7:36 left to play, Penn State used a 12-2 run over the next 5:36 to tie the game with two minutes remaining. Seth Lundy energized the late-game run, scoring 11 of his game-high 17 points in the second half.
A pair of dubious shot selection choices put Penn State behind the eight-ball after tying the game, though. First, a Sam Sessoms fadeaway wouldn’t fall. On the next possession, Greg Lee‘s contested three didn’t go. Both shots came with plenty of time on the shot clock.
Playing the free-throw game, Rutgers took a four-point lead with 17 seconds to go. Sessoms launched a three that pulled PSU back within one, and the Lions got a steal on the ensuing inbounds play, but could only manage a last-ditch heave that missed everything.
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Rutgers, which at one point was shooting 60 percent from the field in the second half, made only three field goals in the final 10 minutes — and zero in the final 5:35.
“We did a good job of guarding those guys one-on-one and making them take tough shots,” Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry said. “We also quit turning the ball over and didn’t give them transition.”
Still, as has often been the case this season, the end-of-game coin flip did not shake out in Penn State’s favor.
“I guess the common denominator is using putting ourselves in the hole a lot of those times instead of playing from ahead or playing even,” Shrewsberry said. “We were putting ourselves in the hole too many times, and now we’d have to fight back and use up all of our energy to fight back.”
