Nittany Lions begin long road toward postseason

At the midway point of a season, it’s a time for teams to reflect and move forward from mistakes.

It’s also a point when teams have to assess their bumps and bruises.

For Penn State, it has to get into the meat of its Big Ten and regular season schedule.

Over the next three months, the Nittany Lions have six dual meets — all of which are against Big Ten opponents. It gets underway this weekend with Penn State traveling to Indiana to face off with Purdue on Friday and finishing off with Indiana on Sunday.

“You’re coming off a tournament where guys had multiple matches,” Nittany Lions coach Cael Sanderson said. “Some had a lot, some had a couple. We kind of get rolling here, which is a great time because a lot of competition over the next couple of months is the fun stuff. We like training, but when you get a chance to compete you got to really enjoy that. We got a lot of opportunities coming up.”

Penn State opens in Indiana before traveling back and hosting Nebraska on Jan. 15. The Nittany Lions then head to Illinois for matches with Northwestern and Illinois on Jan. 17 and Jan. 23, respectively. It will be the last long trip for the Nittany Lions until March.

Penn State will stay in the state for the remainder of the regular season. After that, it will head for the University of Iowa, where the Big Ten tournament is being held March 5-6.

“I think you just adjust,” Sanderson said. “It’s not really that big a deal if you have a clear idea of what you want to get out of the experience or the month. It doesn’t really matter where, here or there. We got a team that likes to compete and wants to compete.”

With a lot of competition, it brings up the question, how fresh can you stay?

“It’s super important,” the Nittany Lions’ Bo Nickal said. “It’s a lot of matches and tough competition coming up. I think that our coaches do an incredible job of keeping us ready and wanting to wrestle.”

Sanderson added: “A lot of it’s attitude. You got to want to compete. That’s why you come to Penn State in the first place. A lot of that is making sure the guys are taking care of themselves with their sleep and diet and getting their studying in during the day so they aren’t up all night.”

One thing will remain the same for Penn State. It will be looking to score bonus points.

Bonus points can help or hurt a team. For the Nittany Lions, its been helping.

Look back at the Southern Scuffle, where Penn State finished with a 59-20 record. Of those 59 victories, 35 of them came with bonus points. The Nittany Lions collected nine major decisions, 10 technical falls and 13 pins in their run toward their sixth straight title.

“Bonus points are obviously very important,” Sanderson said. “It will separate two equal teams. We have guys that are wrestling hard right now probably as hard as we’ve ever seen in the sport. Our guys are looking for bonus points.”

This story was originally published January 7, 2016 at 7:41 PM with the headline "Nittany Lions begin long road toward postseason."