Wisconsin picked up a huge road victory over No. 20 Penn State on Saturday. Here are our top three takeaways from the game for the Badgers.
Wisconsin picked up a critical road victory over No. 20 Penn State on Saturday afternoon, taking down the Nittany Lions 58-49. Here are our top three takeaways from the game for the Badgers.
A career performance for Micah Potter
Jan 11, 2020; University Park, Pennsylvania, USA; Wisconsin Badgers forward Micah Potter (11) and Penn State Nittany Lions guard Curtis Jones Jr (4) reach for the rebound during the second half at Bryce Jordan Center. Wisconsin defeated Penn State 58-49. Mandatory Credit: Matthew OHaren-USA TODAY Sports
Kobe King (10 points, 4 assists) and Brad Davison (11 points, 13 rebounds) both had excellent overall performances and made some timely plays, but there’s no question that the day belonged to Potter.
The Ohio State transfer was nearly unstoppable in the first half, scoring Wisconsin’s first 12 points of the game and finishing with 18 at the intermission. Every one of them was critical with the rest of the rotation struggling mightily to start the day.
Potter came down to earth a bit in the second half, but he hit some massive shots in the final 20 minutes, and ended up with a career-high 24 points on 4-6 shooting from downtown and 9-14 overall. He was also a monster on the glass, racking up 13 boards.
While it’s wrong to suggest that Potter’s lack of eligibility was the sole reason for Wisconsin’s rough start to the season, or that his presence has made all the difference in Bucky’s 5-1 record over its last six, but there’s no denying that he has provided a massive lift for this team since joining the rotation against UW-Milwaukee. This is a result of both his individual production and the load he has taken off of Nate Reuvers’ shoulders.
Potter’s career day against Penn State will undoubtedly make Badger fans even more furious at the NCAA for holding him out for the start of the season.
Wisconsin plays Penn State on the second Saturday of January. In most years, this would be a game in which Wisconsin is the safe NCAA Tournament team and Penn State is trying to improve its shaky resume.
This isn’t most years.
Both teams need this game, to be sure, but if you had to pick a team which needed this game more, it’s Wisconsin. The Badgers’ win over Marquette is valuable, as is their win at Ohio State. However, their win at Tennessee won’t mean too much since the Vols were without Lamonte Turner and are likely to fall to the bottom of the SEC without him. The win at home against Indiana might have more value later in the season, but the Hoosiers look very unconvincing right now. It is not easy to think that Indiana will make the NCAA Tournament in its current state.
Wisconsin’s resume doesn’t have a lot of meat on the bone. The Badgers don’t have to crush the Big Ten to make the NCAA tourney, but they do have to collect several wins against good teams in the league. In other words, they can’t just sweep Nebraska and Minnesota and beat Northwestern and think they have it made. No, Wisconsin will have to grab a number of wins against the likely NCAA Tournament teams in the conference. This season, that currently includes Penn State. True, PSU could falter, but right now, a win over the Nittany Lions would rate as a solid result which boosts a resume.
The good news for Wisconsin is that Penn State is now a value-bearing opponent on an NCAA resume. The bad news is that in this 2019-2020 season, Penn State — along with Rutgers and Illinois — isn’t a pushover anymore. Penn State shows that Wisconsin’s status as an upper-tier Big Ten team can’t be taken for granted this season. Wisconsin owned a long winning streak over Illinois… until Illinois improved. Wisconsin has a long winning streak over Penn State… but Penn State has improved.
There are more obstacles in Wisconsin’s path this season. Yes, this means that Wisconsin has more chances to polish its portfolio, but if the Badgers don’t convert enough of these chances, their NCAA hopes will take a hit… and teams such as Penn State and Rutgers will earn their dance card.
In a normal college basketball season, Wisconsin would be heavily favored and widely expected to beat Penn State in State College on Saturday. Again, this isn’t a normal season. This isn’t “most years.” It is up to Wisconsin to find a “most years” identity to this year, 2020, which is defined by uncertainty and weirdness in the present moment.
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.
Wisconsin hits the road to take on No. 20 Penn State on Saturday. Badger fans should be sure to know these three opposing players.
Wisconsin enters Saturday’s contest against No. 20 Penn State in State College having won 12 straight against the Nittany Lions, but this could very well be the second game in a row the Badgers see an impressive head-to-head winning streak come to a close after snapping a run of 15 straight victories against Illinois in Wednesday’s loss to the Illini in Madison.
Head coach Pat Chambers has his squad ranked in the AP Top 25 poll for the first time in 24 years, and the Nittany Lions look like a pretty safe bet to get back to the NCAA Tournament after an eight-year hiatus. Before falling at Rutgers on Tuesday, Penn State had put together a five-game winning streak that including home victories over No. 4 Maryland and No. 23 Iowa. It’s clear at this point in the season that this is the best group Penn State has had in a very long time.
With that being said, here are the three players on the other side who Badger fans should keep a close eye on throughout Saturday’s contest.
One of the all-time great players in the history of Penn State’s program, Stevens is capping off a marvelous career with an outstanding senior season.
The 6-8 forward from Philadelphia was named to the Wooden Award Midseason Top 25 list that was released earlier this week and is looking like a top contender for Big Ten Player of the Year honors as the conference’s No. 5 scorer and No. 13 rebounder. Stevens is also one of Penn State’s top defenders, ranking second on the team in both blocks and steals.
The Nittany Lions may have lost both matchups to the Badgers last season, but Stevens certainly was not to blame; he scored 22 points in both contests.
Dec 14, 2019; University Park, PA, USA; Penn State Nittany Lions forward Lamar Stevens (11) and forward Mike Watkins (24) react to a play against the Alabama Crimson Tide during the second half at the Bryce Jordan Center. Mandatory Credit: Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports
At this point, you have to sympathize a bit with Nate Reuvers and Micah Potter. The two bigs have had to bang with two of the Big Ten’s most formidable post players in Ohio State’s Kaleb Wesson and Illinois’ Kofi Cockburn in Wisconsin’s last two games, and the trend is set to continue on Saturday against Watkins.
While the 6-9, 254-pound senior isn’t as dangerous a scorer as those two, he’s just as much of a dominant force in the paint. One of the Big Ten’s top defenders, Watkins leads the conference in blocks per game, and he’s a monster on the boards as well (No. 6 in rebounds per game).
While racking up points isn’t exactly what he does best, Watkins is still more than capable of getting his on that end of the floor. At 61.9 percent, his career field goal percentage ranks second among all active Big Ten players.
After averaging 4 points in just 10.8 minutes of action per game as a freshman last year, Jones’ production has skyrocketed in year two.
Thee 6-3 guard out of Birmingham has added more than ten points to his scoring average as a sophomore and has been Penn State’s best offensive player not named Lamar Stevens this season. He ranks behind only Stevens in scoring and is also the team’s top facilitator at just shy of three assists per game.
Jones is one of the Big Ten’s top marksmen from long-range, boasting the No. 10 three-point percentage in the Big Ten.
Penn State basketball is searching for its first NCAA Tournament berth under coach Patrick Chambers. The former Boston University head coach is in his ninth season in State College. Penn State administrators have been very patient with him. A 10-2 start with a win over Maryland has Penn State firmly in the NCAA Tournament hunt with a legitimate chance to give Chambers prolonged job security in the Big Ten. In the short term, that is obviously PSU’s foremost goal and challenge. Yet, the decade of the 2020s presents a bigger question surrounding the Nittany Lions on the hardwood: “Can they develop real momentum?”
Penn State isn’t Rutgers or Nebraska. Penn State has actually made a Sweet 16 this century. Rutgers and Nebraska are programs where momentum is less important than making a one-time breakthrough. Rutgers wants to make an NCAA Tournament. Nebraska wants to win its first NCAA Tournament game. Those programs will worry about other, bigger things after reaching those milestones. Penn State doesn’t have a 29-year NCAA drought (Rutgers) or the unique burden of never having won an NCAA tourney game (Nebraska). The Nittany Lions, as they pursue the Big Dance this season, need to figure out how to have a period of modest — but continuous — success. They don’t know what that looks like, at least not in modern times.
Penn State has made four NCAA Tournaments since the expansion of the tournament field to 64 teams in 1985. Those four bids have all been spaced out by at least five years: 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2011. Penn State would love to have just one period of five years in which it makes two NCAA Tournaments, or a nine-year period in which it makes three NCAA tourneys. Just that — just that modest pattern of continued success — would represent a BIG improvement for Penn State basketball.
It makes one appreciate the phenomenal consistency of Wisconsin basketball this century, and it also reminds one of the landscape in the early 1990s, when Wisconsin was the Big Ten program in search of a transformation. That transformation clearly arrived in Madison. The people of University Park, Pa., are looking for the same in the coming decade.
Ohio State welcomed Big Ten foe Penn State to the Schott and routed the Nittany Lions. Here’s three things we learned.
Let down. What let down? Ohio State came back from an impressive beat down of North Carolina earlier this week and had to welcome in a good Penn State team for its first conference game of the year.
It took a minute to get in sync, but once the Buckeyes did, they put on a clinic for the ages. The shots were falling, the defense was making stops, and Ohio State showed it can play a fast-paced game as a part of what it has in its tool chest as well.
This team is surprising everyone with blowing the roof off the expectations coming into the year, and who knows what the future holds. One thing is certain, the sky appears to be the limit.
Here’s three things we learned about the 106-74 blow out of the Penn State Nittany Lions.
