How to watch Penn State basketball at Minnesota
Penn State basketball is back on the road on Saturday afternoon, taking on Minnesota at Williams Arena. The final true road game of the Nittany Lions’ 2023-24 campaign, it comes on the heels of a 90-81 loss at Iowa on Tuesday night.
Vying to finish above .500 for the year, and reach .500 in Big Ten play for just the ninth time in 32 seasons of conference play, any attempt to hit those benchmarks in Mike Rhoades’ debut season makes this a must-win for Penn State. And, still aiming to hit those goals, the challenge of it is something Rhoades and the Nittany Lions are looking forward to tackling.
“A lot of people… probably didn’t think we’d be here after some of the games we had. We’re fighting for turf. We’re fighting for the standings. It’s great. That’s why we’re here. That’s the fun of it,” said Rhoades. “Let’s just win the next game. You win the next game, the next one becomes more important and more exciting and more fun. That’s how I look at it. I’ve always looked at it that way.
“Going on the road at this time of the year and trying to get a win is very difficult, because other teams are fighting for things as well. But that’s why we all get so into this. We have a lot of fun competing. I want to get to a point around here where we’re expecting to win all the games. You guys might think I’m crazy, but I’ve always thought like that.”
To do so, the Nittany Lions will need to snap out of a road funk that followed a familiar pattern at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Tuesday night.
Shooting poorly to start, with one of their worst 3-point percentages of the season, while sending the Hawkeyes to the free throw line repeatedly defensively, the Nittany Lions’ effort didn’t live up to their aspirations heading into the game.
“Just a disappointing road game, the urgency to play,” Rhoades told Penn State’s in-house broadcast team. “We allowed them to do too many things offensively, scored in transition to get themselves going early in the game ,and then we fouled. We just really lost our defensive discipline. I mean, they shot 37 free throws. We just fouled so much. Fouled with the shot clock going down. It’s just not good enough to win on the road in the Big Ten.”
Penn State (14-15 overall, 8-10 B1G, NET 96) at Minnesota (17-11, 8-9 B1G, NET 77)
Venue: Williams Arena
Tip time: 3:15 p.m. ET – Saturday, March 2
TV: Big Ten Network – Cory Provus (pxp) & Bruce Weber (analyst)
RADIO: Penn State Sports Network – Steve Jones (pxp) & Dick Jerardi (analyst)
NATIONAL RADIO: Sirius XM Ch. 388 & SXM App Ch. 978
LIVE STATS: StatBroadcast | Live Stats
GAME NOTES: Penn State
What is the Penn State-Minnesota spread?
The Nittany Lions are 6-point underdogs at Minnesota on Saturday afternoon. And, the over/under betting total is 150.5 points.
Injury report
Big man Demetrius Lilley returned to action at Iowa after missing the previous five games with an undisclosed injury. He appeared for eight minutes, relieving Qudus Wahab, and scored four points with two rebounds.
“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,” Rhoades said on Monday. “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.”
