One of the things which fascinates me the most about major college sports — football and basketball together, not just one — is that athletic programs often display consistent and enduring traits over decades, even though players and coaches constantly change. It is as though certain athletic programs exhibit the characteristics of actual persons, with nervous tics, psychological tendencies, and other traits we assign to individual human beings.
A great example: Penn State basketball, Wisconsin’s next opponent on Saturday afternoon in Happy Valley. If you study Penn State basketball’s history, several details emerge. Chief among them is the uncanny tendency to make the NCAA Tournament in 10-year periods of time or something very close to 10 years.
Penn State’s first NCAA Tournament berth was achieved in 1942. The next one was attained in 1952. The most prosperous period in Penn State basketball history was a four-year sequence from 1952 through 1955 in which the program made three Sweet 16s and its only Final Four in 1954. Other than that one burst of prosperity, Penn State NCAA bids have been spaced out, generally in 10-year blocks.
After Penn State made the 1955 Big Dance, its next trip to the NCAA Tournament was in 1965. Then came the worst period in program history, a 26-year desert journey without a single Dance card. The program returned to the NCAAs in 1991. It then made a trip in 1996 and another in 2001, 10 years after that 1991 appearance. Penn State’s next NCAA bid after 2001? In 2011, on the 10-year plan. The Nittany Lions haven’t been back since, but now here they are, about to make the NCAAs one year ahead of the 10-year plan.
Yes, Penn State could actually make the Big Show nine years after its previous appearance. By historical standards, that’s not too bad. Except for that golden four-year period in the first half of the 1950s, Penn State basketball has become a place where the administration and various coaches have had to display enormous patience.
One statistic which shows how rarely Penn State makes the NCAA Tournament: No PSU men’s basketball coach has made more than two NCAA tourneys. Elmer Gross (who coached the 1954 team to the Final Four) made two NCAA Tournaments. John Egli and Jerry Dunn also made two. That’s it.
To the current administration’s credit, chiefly AD Sandy Barbour, Penn State didn’t dump Patrick Chambers after the 2019 season. Barbour stuck with Chambers and is about to reap the benefit of an NCAA bid, barring a complete tailspin in Big Ten play.
Penn State looks the part of an NCAA Tournament team. The Nittany Lions can beat Iowa in a track meet (last weekend in the Palestra), but they also have long defenders such as Mike Watkins who can provide a tough, rugged, blue-collar identity.
Penn State has shown resilience this season — coming from nine points down with 15 minutes left to beat Alabama — and it has shown it can deliver a butt-kicking to talented opponents from start to finish, as it did against Syracuse and Wake Forest. Penn State can throw a first punch, but it can also take a punch, as it showed in a 76-69 win over Maryland in December.
The Nittany Lions are deeper than they have been in some time. They don’t let late leads slip through their fingers this season, a key difference from talented teams in recent years which played the top teams well, but not well enough to win. Penn State has been away from the NCAA Tournament for roughly a decade. The light is back on in State College.
Wisconsin’s task will be to turn that light off on Saturday, and create fresh doubt in the minds of Penn State players. Given that Penn State is coming off a loss to Rutgers, we will see if PSU knows how to play mad, or if that NCAA bid isn’t as secure as some people think.