How to watch Penn State basketball at Iowa

Penn State basketball’s last road trip wasn’t as the Nittany Lions had anticipated. Already reeling following a lopsided loss to Michigan State on Valentine’s Day, the program traveled to Nebraska and put up its worst offensive showing of the season.

Scoring just 49 points, with their second-worst field goal percentage of the year, Penn State’s offense was “stuck in the mud” against the Cornhuskers. But, as Nittany Lion head coach Mike Rhoades recalled at his weekly press conference on Monday afternoon, lessons were learned.

“I came back in practice and crushed them about their offense when we’ve improved all year long on the offense end,” said Rhoades. “Number one is because we share the ball. Guys, when we create spacing and we share the ball, we’re getting better threes, we’re getting more to the rim, we’re drawing fouls. That has gotten better all year long.

“But I don’t know if we just didn’t play very well out there and they played very, very well. It was a buzzsaw and what I’m learning in the Big Ten is, you better hang in there and stay connected on the road. If not, it can be it tough. And we made it tougher on ourselves as well.”

Penn State turns an offensive corner?

Tuesday evening, now riding a two-game winning streak that has transformed the outlook for Penn State’s final three games of the Big Ten regular season, the Nittany Lions will put those lessons to the test. Absent Kanye Clary, the team’s leading scorer before his announced dismissal on Feb. 19, they’ve since posted 90 and 83 points, respectively, in back-to-back wins over Illinois and Indiana.

Beyond the scoring output, though, the Nittany Lions also distributed a combined 29 assists, leaving a marked impression over the identity being sought moving forward.

“Let’s not make this harder than it is. No matter who it is, drive and kick, you get two on you, you gotta share the ball. You throw it in the post, you go make a move and they collapse on you, gotta kick it out. Ace comes off a ball screen and he reads rotations, the ball has gotta get hot,” said Rhoades. “We’ve been just doing that better, we’re getting easier shots, and we’re making them, so now all of a sudden, we’re scoring more points, and it’s helping us. It’s not as easy as I’m saying it, but it becomes a little bit clearer.”

Here is how to watch Penn State’s next Big Ten tilt on Tuesday night:

Penn State (14-14 overall, 8-9 B1G, NET 96) at Iowa (16-12, 8-9 B1G, NET 60)

Venue: Carver-Hawkeye Arena
Tip time: 9 p.m. ET – Tuesday, Feb. 27
TV: Big Ten Network – Kevin Kugler (play by play) & Shon Morris (analyst)
RADIO: Penn State Sports Network – Steve Jones (play by play) & Dick Jerardi (analyst)
NATIONAL RADIO: Sirius XM Ch. 380 & SXM App Ch. 970
LIVE STATS: StatBroadcast | Live Stats
GAME NOTES: Penn State | Iowa

What is the Penn State-Iowa spread?

The Nittany Lions are 7.5-point underdogs at Iowa on Tuesday evening. And, the over/under betting total is 163 points. 

Injury report

Big man Demetrius Lilley has missed the past five games with an undisclosed injury. Monday afternoon, Rhoades detailed the day-to-day nature of Lilley’s status.

“We need him. We need that extra body and I thought he’s given us some really good minutes here the last couple of weeks. It’s day to day,” he said. “It’s just a pain type of thing here and it’s some inflammation that we just got to continue to control each day. So, it’s different every day. So he’s been moving around more, so hopefully sooner rather than later. 

“We just keep saying day to day because one day feels better than the next and vice versa. So we just got to keep working with him.”