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Penn State Athletics

Men’s Basketball Hosts Michigan State in Big Ten Opener Wednesday Night


UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State men's basketball team opens up Big Ten play Wednesday night when the Nittany Lions host Michigan State inside the Bryce Jordan Center. Tipoff is slated for 6:30 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.
 
FOLLOW ALONG

 
OPENING TIPS

  • Penn State opens up Big Ten play Wednesday night when the Nittany Lions host Michigan State at the Bryce Jordan Center.
  • The Nittany Lions are 6-2 on the season, with the only two losses being a 2-point neutral-site defeat to Virginia Tech and a double-overtime road loss at Clemson.
  • Jalen Pickett leads four Nittany Lions in double figures with 16.1 points per game. Seth Lundy (13.6 ppg), Camren Wynter (11.6 ppg) and Andrew Funk (11.0 ppg) follow.

 
IF PENN STATE BEATS MICHIGAN STATE

  • Penn State would win its Big Ten opener for the first time since the 2017-18 season.
  • Penn State would earn back-to-back wins over Michigan State for the first time in program history.
  • The Nittany Lions would improve to 5-0 at home this season.

 
SCOUTING THE SPARTANS

  • The Spartans have had an up-and-down start and are 5-4 on the season, 0-1 in Big Ten play, and coming off back-to-back losses at Notre Dame (52-70) and to Northwestern (63-70).
  • Michigan State's biggest win thus far came on Nov. 15, an 86-77 double-overtime victory over #4 Kentucky.
  • Tyson Walker leads the team with 14.4 points per game, while Joey Hauser follows with 13.2 points and a team-best 6.8 rebounds per contest.

 
AGAINST MICHIGAN STATE

  • Penn State is seeking back-to-back wins over Michigan State for the first time in program history. Four of the last five meetings between the two teams have been decided by seven points or less.
  • Michigan State leads the all-time series 42-10. Five of Penn State's 10 wins over the Spartans have come in Happy Valley.
  • The teams split last season's series, with the home team winning each contest.
  • Penn State used a 33-15 run in the game's final 13 minutes to erase a 14-point deficit and rally to defeat #19 Michigan State, 62-58, in the most recent meeting on Feb. 15, 2022 inside the Bryce Jordan Center.
  • The Nittany Lions only led the game for a total of 2:07, trailing by as much as 14 with 13:20 to play in the second half.  The 33-15 game-closing run was cemented with a 12-4 Penn State advantage in the final 3:04 as the Nittany Lions clawed back for Micah Shrewsberry's first head coaching victory over a ranked team.

 
B1G OPENERS

  • Penn State opens Big Ten play at home for just the fourth time in the last 14 years Wednesday when the Nittany Lions host Michigan State at the Bryce Jordan Center.
  • The Big Ten Conference was the first to move to a 20-game league schedule and began the new format for the 2018-19 season. The first year of early December Big Ten Conference games in 2017-18 sent Penn State to Iowa and gave the Nittany Lions their first conference-opening win since 2010.

 
6-2

  • Penn State is off to a 6-2 start. Three of the Nittany Lions' six wins have come over teams currently ranked in the top 85 of the KenPom rankings, and Penn State's only two losses were a two-point neutral-site defeat to Virginia Tech and a double-overtime road loss at Clemson.
  • The Nittany Lions opened the season with a pair of 25-point wins over Winthrop (93-68) and Loyola Maryland (90-65). Penn State earned a pair of closer victories over Butler (68-62) and Furman (73-68) before falling to the Hokies (59-61) in the Nittany Lions' first loss of the season. Penn State bounced back with wins over Colorado State (68-56) and Lafayette (70-57) before falling in double-overtime at Clemson (94-101) in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

 
FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS

  • Penn State and Nittany Lion players rank in the top 25 in the nation in a number of statistical categories as of Dec. 5:
Team Stat Value National Rank
3FG made/game 12.1 1
Assist-to-turnover ratio 1.65 8
Fewest turnovers/game 9.9 11
FT% 78.7% 13
3FG% 40.4% 14
Effective FG% 0.572 22
Player Stat Value National Rank
Assist-to-turnover ratio – Jalen Pickett 4.36 4
Assists/game – Jalen Pickett 7.6 5
Total Assists – Jalen Pickett 61 6
FT% - Camren Wynter 91.3% 25

 
MAKE IT RAIN

  • Penn State leads the nation with 12.1 3-pointers made per game. The Nittany Lions are shooting the long ball at a 40.4 percent (97-240) clip, a mark that ranks 14th in the country.
  • Penn State (12.1/game, 40.4 3FG%) and Utah State (11.7/game, 44.6 3FG%) are the only two teams in the country that average 11 or more 3-pointers per game while shooting at least 40 percent from beyond the arc.
  • The 3-point line has existed in the college game for 36 years. Heading into this season, Penn State had never made more than 15 3-pointers in a single game, but the Nittany Lions did so twice in the first two games of the season. Penn State drilled a program-record 18 3-pointers in the Nov. 7 season opener against Winthrop, besting the previous school mark of 15 that was reached on three occasions, most recently on Nov. 21, 2021 against Cornell. The Nittany Lions followed that up with 16 treys on Nov. 10 against Loyola Maryland.
  • Penn State has made double-digit 3-pointers in seven of its eight games this season.

 
HOME SWEET HAPPY VALLEY

  • Penn State looks to move to 5-0 at home this season when the Nittany Lions host Michigan State in the Big Ten opener Wednesday.
  • Penn State is averaging 80.3 points per game when playing in the Bryce Jordan Center thus far this season. The Nittany Lions are shooting 51.7 percent from the floor and 46.2 percent from 3-point range while averaging 13.8 3-pointers and 20.0 assists per home contest.

 
THE MAESTRO

  • Preseason All-Big Ten selection Jalen Pickett has put on a show through the first eight games of the season and is averaging 16.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and 7.6 assists per game while shooting 48.6 percent (52-107) from the field.
  • Pickett ranks fourth in the country with a Big Ten-best 4.36 assist-to-turnover ratio and fifth in the country with a conference-best 7.6 assists per game.
  • Pickett put together the second triple-double and first points-rebounds-assists triple-double in Penn State history Nov. 14 against Butler with his 15 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists. Penn State's only other triple-double came in 1998 when all-time great Calvin Booth tallied 19 points, 10 rebounds and 10 blocks against Dayton in an NIT game.
  • Pickett's triple-double was just the eighth turnover-free triple-double by a collegiate player in the last four seasons. It was the first triple-double by a Big Ten player since the 2020-21 season when Ayo Dosunmu of Illinois reached the milestone on Feb. 22, 2021.

 
LOCKED IN ON LUNDY

  • Senior Seth Lundy is off to a strong start this season, leading Penn State with a 54.8 FG% (34-62), a 48.7 3FG% (19-39) and a team-best 7.1 rebounds per game.
  • Lundy has scored in double figures in seven of eight games this season and is coming off a double-double performance (23 points, career-high 12 rebounds) at Clemson. In addition to his offensive consistency, Lundy serves as one of the team's top defenders and is consistently tasked with guarding the opposing team's best players.

 
PERIMETER PUNCH

  • Penn State's Myles Dread, Andrew Funk and Seth Lundy have provided a lethal 1-2-3 punch on the perimeter as the three Nittany Lions are each averaging at least 2.4 3-pointers per game.
  • Funk ranks second in the Big Ten with 2.8 treys per game. Lundy (2.4/game, 48.7%) and Dread (2.5/game, 45.5%) are both shooting over 45 percent from deep. Dread ranks fifth all-time at Penn State with 252 career triples. 

 
UP NEXT

  • Penn State continues conference play Saturday when the Nittany Lions travel to #17 Illinois for a noon tipoff on the Big Ten Network.

 
The 2022-23 Penn State men's basketball season is presented by Highmark Health.