What Penn State Basketball must do to keep flickering NIT hopes alive
By Evan Smith
Penn State Basketball’s chances of making the postseason are fading fast, but can the Nittany Lions still make the NIT?
Penn State Basketball’s latest losing streak leaves no margin for error if the Nittany Lions want to play postseason basketball this year.
Just one month ago, Penn State Basketball was 8-6, 3-3 in conference, after blowing out Rutgers in the Bryce Jordan Center. Days prior, the Nittany Lions beat Northwestern on the road to earn a conference winning streak after their home win at Indiana.
Prospects looked bright for post-season basketball, minimally, the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), which spurnned Penn State just a year ago.
Winning three out of four after the COVID pause hid Penn State Basketball’s significant offensive issues. In the two home wins, Penn State managed just 61 and 66 points. This would hint at the issues to come as Penn State has only managed to score over 60 points one time since that Rutgers win and needed two overtimes to do it.
Now sitting at 9-11 (4-8), what must Penn State basketball do in order to earn a bid to the NIT?
First, we must remember what teams the NIT will take.
The four ‘1 seeds’ in the NIT will be the first four teams that did not make the NCAA Tournament. In reality, the top 12 teams in the NIT all had realistic NCAA Tournament hopes and were on the bubble at the end of the year, and Penn State Basketball is nowhere near any NCAA Tournament bubble.
Any team that won its conference regular-season championship but lost in the conference tournament earns an automatic bid in the NIT, usually the four ‘8 seeds’ and some of the ‘7 seeds’. This means there is approximately 14 bids (the four 4, 5, and 6 seeds and roughly 2 of the 7 seeds) in the NIT up for grabs from teams not really on the NCAA Tournament bubble.