With Selection Sunday right around the corner, there is no mystery for the Penn State men’s basketball team. The formula is pretty simple for the Nittany Lions — they have to win the Big Ten Men’s Tournament to claim a spot in the field of 64.
In today’s edition of Morelli OnLion, we’ll preview the Big Ten Men’s Tournament, look back at the Big Ten Women’s Tournament and feature another member of the Class of 2010.
Let’s start with men’s basketball.
One and Done?
Yes, the Nittany Lions are playing much better now that the end of the season has arrived. They picked up three conference wins and took Michigan State and Purdue to the wire before losing.
But in the end, the Nittany Lions finished with a 3-15 conference record.
As they head to the Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament in Indianapolis, the Nittany Lions are the No. 11 seed. They will face No. 6 seed Minnesota in the opening round on Thursday night.
During the regular season, Minnesota beat Penn State twice. In the first meeting on Dec. 29, the Golden Gophers held off the Nits, 75-70. In the second meeting at University Park on Feb. 6, the Gophers got a late bucket to knock off the Nits, 66-64.
They say it’s hard to beat a team three times in one season. I don’t buy that. PSU is playing better now than it did in December and February. But this game is going to come down to coaching and the edge goes to Tubby Smith.
While Smith isn’t having the kind of success that the Minnesota brass thought he would, Smith knows the pressure is on. If his squad bows out of the tourney to a No. 11 seed, he will never hear the end of it.
Battle will be good in Indy, but we’ll take the Gophers in a squeaker.
Gantdaily.com prediction: Minnesota 71, Penn State 68.
Lady Lions Ousted
The Lady Lions went 1-1 in Indianapolis and now wait to see whether or not they’ll be selected for the NCAA Women’s Tournament. It doesn’t look promising. Penn State will be a better fit in the WNIT.
A closer look at the games in Indy:
Iowa 82
Penn State 75
The Lady Lions shot nearly 48 percent from the field but it was not enough to overcome the No. 3 seeded Iowa Hawkeyes in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament on March 4.
Senior Tyra Grant stepped up once again for Penn State, scoring 32 points. That effort helped her pass the 2,000-point mark. She is just the fourth Lady Lion to eclipse 2,000 points.
It was a tough loss to swallow for the Lady Lions, who watched their NCAA tournament hopes wither on the court at Conseco Fieldhouse. Penn State coach Coquese Washington was not at all pleased with the way her squad played defense in the game.
“We scored 75 points,” Washington explained. “It’s not so much what we did or did not do offensively as we just gave them too many points. We didn’t defend as well in the second half as we did in the first. We gave them too many open threes and put them to the free throw line too much.”
Iowa went crazy from three-point land, burying 11 treys in the contest. That tied the Big Ten tournament record.
Other than Grant, the Lady Lions had little offense in the loss. Alex Bentley scored 18, but she was the only other player in double figures for Penn State.
Penn State played a solid first half and led, 32-30, at the intermission.
However, the second half belonged to the Hawkeyes. Jamie Printy and Kelly Krei were a solid one-two punch as Iowa took command of the ballgame.
After being swept by Penn State during the regular season, Iowa wanted to make a statement at the tournament.
“This is an important win for us. You know, Penn State had swept us during the year, and we really felt we were playing a much better brand of basketball now than we were six, seven weeks ago,” said Iowa coach Lisa Bluder. “We had to play them within a two week span. And so we thought we had an opportunity coming into this game, that we were playing better.”
Penn State 63
Minnesota 52
In the opening round of the Big Ten tournament, the Lady Lions got a big game from Julia Trogele to defeat the Golden Gophers, a team they’d lost to twice during the regular season.
Trogele scored just five points, but she had seven assists and grabbed six rebounds as the Lady Lions took down No. 11 seed Minnesota on March 4.
Grant and Nikki Greene led a second-half charge for Penn State, which captured its first Big Ten tourney victory under its third-year coach.
Trogele felt the win was a long time coming.
“I think it was really exciting for us,” Trogele said. “The past two years that I’ve been here, we unfortunately haven’t been able to get past the first round. We struggled a bit. But coming out as strong as we did and knowing that they had beat us twice, and then beating them was really amazing for us. It just gives us a lot of confidence.”
Penn State fell behind early, 16-6, but there was no quit on this day. Although Grant and Greene were struggling over the first 20 minutes of play, the Lady Lions were able to pull even at the half, 27-27.
In the second half, Minnesota got the first bucket to take a two-point lead. That would be short-lived, however. Grant finally got the lid off the hoop and the Lady Lions went on a 12-2 run that would give them the lead for keeps.
Minnesota also went cold in the second half, connecting on just 7 of 35 shots from the field.
“I think about all of the layups we missed,” said Minnesota coach Pam Borton. “I thought we had some wide open shots that normally go down. I thought there were very few bad shots we took throughout the second half.”
Down the stretch, the Lady Lions took command of the game. In the end, Washington was pleased with what she saw from her freshmen, who were experiencing the Big Ten tournament for the first time.
“I think they all have one thing in common — they’re fighters and they’re competitors. I knew coming into this game that we had some depth, and I was going to use it.”
Class of 2010: Miles Dieffenbach
This week, the spotlight falls on Miles Dieffenbach, a 6-foot-4 285-pound offensive lineman from Fox Chapel High School near Pittsburgh. Most assumed that he would choose to play closer to home but picked the Nittany Lions over rival Pitt.
After a visit to Penn State last June, he’d seen enough and made his decision to verbal to the Nittany Lions.
“I wasn’t really holding out for it. I mean, I grew up a Pitt fan all of my life and always hated Penn State, so when they offered me, I wasn’t really that into it,” Dieffenbach said. “But then I visited and it was different from what I thought. I loved it, and the tables turned.”
Dieffenbach could plug a hole along the offensive line. He was selected as a first-teamer by the Pennsylvania Football News and was named to the second team by the Associated Press this past year.
He was also a member of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s prestigious Fabulous 22 and played in the Under Armour All-American Bowl in Orlando, Fla.
On Deck: Khairi Fortt
Chris Morelli is an award-winning writer/editor who lives in Centre County and covers Penn State athletics. He is also a regular on “Sports Central,” which airs on ESPN Radio in Altoona and State College. E-mail him at morellionlion@gmail.com.
