Penn State Basketball: Nittany Lions shown little respect with NIT seed
Penn State basketball was given a raw deal with its seeding in the upcoming NIT
Considered a bubble team for the NCAA Tournament, Penn State was ultimately left out of the Big Dance when the field was announced on Sunday. However, being a bubble team all but guaranteed the Nittany Lions a spot in the NIT. Unfortunately, when the teams for the NIT were officially announced, Penn State seemingly got slighted with its seed.
Penn State landed as a No. 4 seed, a spot much lower than what was perhaps expected. Racking up 21 wins, finishing sixth in the tough Big Ten, beating a ranked Ohio State team three times and coming up ultimately one win short of an NCAA bid should have been enough to make the Nittany Lions one of the top teams in the NIT.
Instead, Penn State will have to face a tougher road in the tournament and work through a difficult section of the bracket. Region 1 — where the Nittany Lions landed — features the likes of Notre Dame, Marquette, Oregon and Temple. Not to mention Rider, a team that beat Penn State in the Bryce Jordan Center at the beginning of the season.
The Nittany Lions will open the tournament by hosting No. 5 Temple on Wednesday, March 14 at 8:00 p.m. The winner of that game will then face either No. 1 Notre Dame or No. 8 Hampton.
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Looking closer at the numbers will reveal that Penn State should have been seed higher than No. 4. For comparisons, the top team in Region 1 — Notre Dame, had one less win and one more loss than the Nittany Lions. In fact, the Nittany Lions are third in the eight-team region in total wins, behind Oregon and Rider (both tied with 22).
Marquette, the No. 2 team in the region, finished the season with just 19 total wins.
Penn State certainly had some bad losses, and has nobody to blame but itself for missing out on the NCAA Tournament. The team was plagued with inconsistent play throughout the season. Still, when everything was clicking, the Nittany Lions showed they could be a very dangerous team.
Top rebounder Mike Watkins missed the final four games of the season, and his up-in-the-air status likely hurt both Penn State’s NCAA Tournament chances and seeding in the NIT.
Regardless of where the Nittany Lions ended up, nothing can be changed at this point. Although the seeding doesn’t quite seem fair, and the bracket is extremely tough, Penn State does have a chance to make a deep run in the NIT and gain valuable postseason experience.