“OK, OK, so I’m clearly exaggerating. The Penn State Nittany Lions are not Big Ten title contenders. But like all exaggerations, this one is born from at least a kernel of truth, which is the simple fact that in their past four games, if you couldn’t read the name on the front of their jersey and had no access to their prior performance, you’d think Penn State was one of the best teams in the Big Ten.
No, seriously. It’s true.
In their past four games, the Nittany Lions are 2-2. They’ve beaten No. 19 Michigan State and No. 16 Illinois. They’ve lost to No. 2 Ohio State and, last night, to No. 13 Purdue. Both of those losses came on the road — against arguably the Big Ten’s two best teams — by a whopping combined margin of four points. More importantly, neither game was a get-close-after-a-last-ditch-comeback-attempt-and-some-missed-free-throws sort of affair. No, in both losses, as in those two huge home wins, the Nittany Lions played a Big Ten title contender close for an entire 40-minute period. In both losses, Penn State had last-second opportunities to win the game.
(On Wednesday night, Penn State fell victim to a rather questionable out-of-bounds call with five seconds remaining that gave the ball back to Purdue and allowed JaJuan Johnson to hit his game-winning jumper on the wing. That call goes the other way — and it probably should have — and PSU probably takes home the win.)…”
via Big Ten title contender: Penn State? – College Basketball Nation Blog – ESPN.