Big Ten Basketball Power Rankings: Purdue, Maryland make huge leaps
13. Penn State Nittany Lions (7-10)
Previous rank: 12
Penn State ended conference play 7-6. The losses to Bradley and DePaul were behind them. The Nittany Lions are a top-60 KenPom team because of the big win over Virginia Tech. They did start league play 0-2 because of losses to Maryland and Indiana. Then came North Carolina State and Alabama, but they are better teams.
Penn State reopens Big Ten play on the road against Michigan. They go back to Happy Valley and get a Wisconsin team that really needed a win. Penn State then goes to Lincoln for a date with Nebraska and most recently Penn State faces number one A in the Big Ten.
There are going to be no easy games in the Big Ten this year, but it was a pretty rough go-around for Penn State in the last four games. Three out of four teams were ranked at the time and personally, I think Nebraska still deserves to be ranked. Plus it was a Big Ten road game. Nebraska was as desperate for a win as the Badgers.
The obvious explanation for this is that they don’t have Tony Carr. But Lamar Stevens is taking over the role as the explosive Nittany Lion. He doesn’t have the long shot Carr had, but is six-foot-eight, shoots 47 percent from the floor, averages 18.6 points and grabs eight boards. If Penn State were a little more competitive at this point, Stevens would be a lock for first team All-Big Ten.
Josh Reaves on the other hand isn’t taking the next step. Hasn’t improved his scoring, just over 10 points per game, 3.5 assists and almost five boards. The biggest killer was Mike Watkins missing the first five games. It has taken him a while to get used to playing regular minutes though. The rebounding is there, but he’s under 10 points per game.
Freshmen Rasir Bolton and Myles Dread are combined for 18 points per game and almost 80 three-pointers. But there’s a major drop off in scoring from there which is why Penn State is struggling in the Big Ten this season.