Penn State men’s basketball heads to Big Ten Tournament with ‘clear minds,’ in need of 5 wins
There’s a sense of relief that comes with playing college basketball without looming postseason expectations. The pressure of being on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament can make a team collapse under the bright lights of conference tournaments.
Of course it’s better to be on the bubble than out of the conversation for a bid — where Penn State men’s basketball currently finds itself.
“We’re just going in with clear minds right now,” senior guard Jalen Pickett said. “Of course the goal is to get to the NCAA Tournament. We’re gonna try to win every game, so I mean we’re just playing free right now. Whatever happens, happens.”
While the Nittany Lions would rather be in the conversation than out of it, they aren’t right now and should be able to play without much burden this week in the Big Ten Tournament.
First-year head coach Micah Shrewsberry hopes the lack of expectations will help his team out. The program opens the conference tournament Wednesday night against the Minnesota Golden Gophers in Indianapolis as the No. 11 seed, needing five wins in five days — four of which would presumably be against higher-seeded teams — to win the title and lock up an NCAA Tournament appearance.
Shrewsberry said his players have a chance to play freely in the coming days.
“We have pressure, like we don’t want our season to end, but we also get an opportunity to just go play,” Shrewsberry said. “And see if we can piece it together at the right moments. ... There’s a sense of confidence, but also a sense of like, anybody can come in here and beat anybody on any given night.”
Part of that lack of pressure comes from what his team has done so far this season and what the other 13 teams in the Big Ten haven’t done.
The Nittany Lions have been competitive in almost every game, hanging with the top three seeds — Illinois, Wisconsin and Purdue — with two of those games coming on the road, while beating the No. 4 seed Rutgers Scarlet Knights at home and narrowly falling to them on the road.
Shrewsberry has seen that lack of separation from top to bottom in the standings.
“Here in the Big Ten Tournament you look at how the season has gone for everybody this year,” he said. “There’s nobody that you go into the tournament and you feel like you can’t beat. And there’s nobody that you feel like you can’t get beat by. This thing is up in the air as possible.”
Of course, if Penn State were at the level of those teams, it wouldn’t be the No. 11 seed in need of five wins. The program already knows who the first three of those games would need to come against in order to make the semifinals.
A win over the No. 14 seed Gophers would lead to a matchup with No. 6 seed Ohio State, and a win over the Buckeyes would result in a Friday date with the No. 3 seed — and Shrewsberry’s old team — Boilermakers. The third matchup would be a rematch of a close game, but the matchups with Minnesota and Ohio State would be the third for the teams this season.
The Lions and Gophers split their matchups, with each team winning at home, while Ohio State swept Penn State — although one of the games was in early December and the other was played without Penn State’s best defensive player — and arguably its most valuable shooter — in junior forward Seth Lundy.
Shrewsberry said, while both are technically trilogies, those circumstances make them very different.
“(Our) two games (against Minnesota) are so fresh, that that’s what you go back to, to watch more than anything else,” he said. “... You think about other games that are further apart, it’s hard. It’s harder. I can’t look ahead, but if we play Ohio State, we played them December 5. That’s two completely different teams, so you can throw that out of the books in terms of (scouting).”
The gameplanning may be different, but the needed result for more basketball is the same — win and Penn State gets to keep playing, lose and the season ends.
The finality of a loss will likely have its greatest impact on senior center John Harrar, who recently broke the record for most games played with the program. He’s out of eligibility and has said time and time again he’s not ready to be done with his career.
“I got more to give,” Harrar said. “I’m not done. I’m not done yet.”
Now it’s just a matter of whether or not everything he and his teammates can give will be enough to go on an unprecedented run this week in Indianapolis.
