March 10, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - A new season begins for the Nittany Lion basketball team when the ball is tipped inside Chicago's United Center on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.
The 13th-seeded Nittany Lions (16-15, 4-14 Big Ten) will face off with 12th-seeded Nebraska (13-17, 5-13 Big Ten) in the opening game of the 2015 Big Ten Tournament (ESPN2). Thanks to game-winner from the conference's scoring champion D.J. Newbill on Sunday, the Nittany Lions head to Chicago with a great deal of momentum. Newbill's triple sealed a season sweep of Minnesota inside Williams Arena on Sunday afternoon.
"It was a great way to finish the season," head coach Patrick Chambers said. "It was our first (Big Ten) road win. I'm really proud of this group with the way they competed and fought all Big Ten season. Now we get a clean slate and head out to Chicago and see if we can make some noise."
The Nittany Lions are relishing in the opportunity they have in front them. After a rigorous 18-game Big Ten regular season, a clean slate levels the playing field in Chicago. The Lions will take confidence into what could be a wide-open series of games on the first three days of the tournament.
"(We) definitely got some momentum (after Sunday)," Chambers said. "When you get a road win and break a losing streak, so two positives...I definitely think we have some momentum, but we know Nebraska and we know how they are going to play. We know (Shavon) Shields, (Terran) Petteway and (Walter) Pitchford, and we know Coach Miles will have them ready to play on a neutral court."
The Nittany Lions and Huskers will be seeing one another for the second time in 2015. Penn State used a strong all around defensive effort to top Nebraska, 56-43, on Feb. 7. The Lions limited Nebraska to just 13 first-half points and 29 percent shooting for the game. Geno Thorpe led the scoring charge with 14 points in the Nittany Lion victory.
"We played really good team defense," Chambers said. "We made plays in timely spots. Shep Garner hit two really big threes to put it away for us....We've got to get some stops. When you play in tournament play, it's all about stops and rebounds and taking care of the basketball. It's going to be a different game Wednesday than it was here in the Bryce Jordan Center."
Newbill Leading Lions Into Postseason
It's hard to imagine a scenario where a player had a greater impact on a team's success than Newbill has had for the Nittany Lions. Coach Chambers has said that Newbill has done everything for the team except fly the plane to away games. Sure, he's joking, but the statement speaks to the degree Newbill has impacted the program. Words cannot do it justice.
The senior guard, who finished as the top scorer in the power five conferences during the 2014-'15 regular season, has been a model student-athlete for the Nittany Lions since he arrived on campus. Newbill has gone through what would be an insurmountable amount of adversity for most college students, but the Philly native never wavered.
He approached every day inside the program with the belief that he was going to will the Nittany Lions to success. While Newbill will leave Penn State deserving of more wins than he obtained, the top scorer in the conference will go down as one of the program's all-time best.
With a game-winning three in his back pocket following Sunday's dramatic win over Minnesota, the stage is set for Newbill to leave his mark on the Big Ten Tournament in Chicago. And there would be no better way for a true class act to end his Penn State career than with a run in the postseason.
A first team All-Big Ten guard in every sense of the word, Newbill earned second-team honors for the second-straight season on Monday evening.
We let members of the team and assistant coaches share their thoughts on what Newbill has meant to the program. And then asked Newbill what he thought the group said about him. Take a look.
Scouting Nebraska
Nebraska heads into the Big Ten Tournament on an eight-game slide, which began with Penn State's 56-43 victory over the Huskers on Feb. 7. The Cornhuskers have not won a game since knocking off Northwestern, 76-70, on Feb. 3. Nebraska mounted an upset bid in the regular season finale against No. 9 Maryland, but came up short in a 64-61 decision on Sunday.
Guard Terran Petteway finished the regular season as the Big Ten's fourth leading scorer at 17.8 points per game. Forward Shavon Shields gives the Huskers a one-two scoring punch. Shields enters the postseason averaging 15.3 tallies per game. Shields is also averaging 5.9 rebounds per game.
As a team, though, Nebraska has struggled to score down the stretch. The Huskers have topped 60 points just twice during the eight-game slide. Nebraska is ranked 13th in the Big Ten in scoring offense at 61.3 points per game. The Huskers are also ranked 13th in field goal percentage at .416.
Defensively, Nebraska has been solid, limiting its opponents to 63.0 ppg (6th in the Big Ten) and 40.3 percent shooting (6th in the Big Ten). Head coach Tim Miles' squad is ranked 13th in rebounding margin.
The Nittany Lions have never played Nebraska in the Big Ten Tournament.
Bracket Analysis
The 2015 Big Ten Tournament marks the first time in the conference's history that 14 teams are on the bracket. With the addition of Rutgers and Maryland, the tournament has extended into five days. Should the Nittany Lions advance on Wednesday, they would meet No. 5-seeded Iowa on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. ET (BTN). The winner of that game moves on to face No. 4-seeded Purdue on Friday at 2:30 p.m. ET (ESPN).
The other teams in Penn State's half of the bracket include top-seeded Wisconsin, which will meet the winner of No. 8 Illinois and No. 9 Michigan (Thursday at 12 p.m. ET).
Both teams Penn State could potentially face during the first three days of the tournament, should the Lions advance, are no strangers to close games with the Nittany Lions. Penn State played both Iowa and Purdue to overtime during the regular season. Iowa topped the Penn State, 81-77, on Feb. 28. Purdue edged Penn State, 84-77, on Jan. 17. Action begins in Chicago on Wednesday with Penn State and Nebraska.