Why beating Indiana Wednesday would check off an important milestone for Penn State men’s basketball
Penn State can reach an important benchmark at the Bryce Jordan Center Wednesday night. The Nittany Lions’ men’s basketball team (14-5) needs just one more victory to surpass last season’s win total, with 11 games left to play.
To do that, they’ll have to take down a familiar opponent in the Indiana Hoosiers. The Hoosiers (15-5) are especially familiar for one Nittany Lion in particular.
Senior guard Curtis Jones Jr. signed with the Hoosiers and then-head coach Tom Crean as part of their 2016 recruiting class. He spent just over a season in Bloomington before initiating the transfer process and signing with Oklahoma State in January 2018. He spent just more than a season with the Cowboys before graduating and deciding to transfer for his senior year.
He ultimately decided to spend one more season in the Big Ten, joining the Nittany Lions when he committed to them in June 2019.
Now that he’s back in the conference, Jones Jr., who scored a season-high 18 points in Penn State’s Jan. 22 game against Michigan, is set to get his first crack at playing against his first university. The guard said he doesn’t view the game much differently than any other, even with the history he has at Indiana.
“I think it’ll be the same (as other games),” Jones Jr. said. “Definitely a little emotional, but I try to look at it as the same type of game.”
Even if it’s business as usual for Jones Jr., he’ll still have a chance to reunite with some old teammates. The senior said he still keeps in contact with former Indiana teammates De’Ron Davis and Devonte Green, but they haven’t talked about the upcoming game. Green is a guard like Jones, but the Penn State senior said he doesn’t have any extra information to provide his new team when it comes to the scouting report.
“There’s not much (I can add) from what we’ll have in the scout and what coach will have prepared for us,” Jones Jr. said. “I know (Devonte), but they put a lot of time into their scout. So I’ll probably go with them over me.”
Green is the engine to the Indiana offense, but Davis plays a role for the Hoosiers as well. He’s part of the team’s rotation of bigs that can cause a size advantage for the Hoosiers. They frequently play two bigs together, something that’s out of the ordinary for modern basketball.
“We have to do our job,” Penn State head coach Pat Chambers said, “we have to be in stances, we have to find bodies when shots go up because (Justin) Smith is the three, and that’s a big three. They play two fives, really ... (They) play so big and kind of old school.”
Indiana’s size could be an advantage on the boards for the Hoosiers, but it could give the Nittany Lions a boost in other areas. One of the team’s two bigs will likely have to guard senior Penn State forward Lamar Stevens.
Indiana head coach Archie Miller is well aware of the matchup problems Stevens could cause his lineup.
“Lamar offensively causes a lot of problems, just (with) the way he plays — he’s versatile, his transition game,” Miller said Monday evening on his weekly radio show. “He’s strong enough (to where) he can pretty much handle what’s going on.”
Miller could put redshirt freshman wing Jerome Hunter on Stevens. If he decides to take that route, his bigs will have to slide further up the lineup and defend one of the Nittany Lions’ guards.
That could open the floor for Penn State to attack Indiana’s pack line defense. The pack line defense is a defensive scheme that tries to force opponents to shoot from the perimeter and pack the paint to prevent scoring at the rim. If a big is forced to the perimeter, space will open up for the Nittany Lions. Most of the teams the Nittany Lions have played this year, according to Chambers, have tried some form of pack line defense.
“They’re a great defensive team,” Chambers said. “We’re all playing a version of a pack line, trying to keep people out of the paint. That’s the goal. Because when you put pressure on the paint, that means there are rotations, somebody is going to help, and then you get open and you kick out and make threes.”
While Penn State may have already seen iterations of the pack line this season, Indiana’s size presents a unique challenge for the Nittany Lions. If their guards can attack the rim and finish, and shooters like Jones Jr. can make open looks, Penn State should be well on its way to its 15th victory of the season Wednesday night.
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 12:02 PM.
