Where Do Penn State Basketball's Tournament Hopes Stand? Nittany Lions Enter Defining Stretch

Big Ten play hasn’t treated Penn State very kindly. Since beating Northwestern 84-80 win to start conference play and 2025, the Nittany Lions have dropped four consecutive games, three to ranked Big Ten opponents.

The next stretch of Penn State’s basketball season could be a defining one. At 12-6, the team finds its path to the NCAA Tournament shrinking. TeamRankings projects Penn State to win 19 games but gives it only an 11 percent chance of making the bracket. Facing some January adversity, including an injury to a key contributor, Mike Rhoades’ squad looks to assert itself in a tough portion of the schedule that continues Monday with an important game against Rutgers.

The latest on Puff Johnson’s injury

In Wednesday’s 90-85 loss to Michigan State, senior Puff Johnson exited in the first half with a right hand injury. He didn’t return to the game, one reason Rhoades wound up playing Ace Baldwin Jr., Zach Hicks and D’Marco Dunn for 35-plus minutes each. On Friday, Rhoades said Johnson will “be out for a bit.”

“He's still being evaluated by the doctors, but he'll definitely be out for a while,” Rhoades said. “I hate to say it like this, and it’s because of how valuable Puff is to us, but everybody goes through this. Next man up mentality.”

Johnson has contributed 10.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game for Penn State this season, one of six Nittany Lions averaging double digits in points. Rhoades said his younger players will have to step in to fill Johnson’s role on the court but also noted upperclassmen must be vocal leaders as well.

“Some of the young guys got to step up. Kachi [Nzeh] has been playing more and more, so we'll be able to move him over to that four spot as well. And of course, Zach [Hicks] and Nick [Kern] have played that position too,” Rhoades said. “The seniors gotta step up and use their voice more. That's the one thing that has to change; we got to have more talk out there.”

Coming up short vs. strong teams

Johnson’s injury came at a rough time for Penn State, as three of the team’s four consecutive losses were decided in the closing minutes. At The Palestra on Jan. 5, the Nittany Lions couldn’t do enough to contain Indiana’s frontcourt, falling 77-71. Even with Baldwin sidelined with a back injury, Penn State came one point shy against Oregon last week. And Wednesday’s loss to the Spartans continued the trend; Penn State is keeping tough matchups close but hasn’t finished them on top.

“We battled the other day on the road [at Michigan State.] Not good enough to win a Big Ten game on the road. There were some things I was really proud of, our approach and our effort, just too many mistakes to try to beat a really good team in their arena,” Rhoades said. “We got to play better than we have been. We're close, but that doesn't count when you play college basketball.”

If the NCAA Tournament is the goal, the Nittany Lions simply will have to find more success in close games to get there. Of their six losses through 18 games, the Nittany Lions have lost four by six points or less. Penn State has the pieces to consistently win, ranking fifth in the Big Ten with its plus-12.7 average point differential. But doing so on a nightly basis against strong competition has been a challenge.

“I think we respond well [to adversity] at certain times during the game,” Dunn said Friday. “Obviously, we haven't capitalized how we wanted to, especially in the late game stretches. But going forward, that's what we're gonna have to do to stack some wins.”

Penn State enters a defining stretch

Last year, the worst Big Ten team in the regular season to make the NCAA Tournament was Michigan State, which had a 19-14 record. In 2023, it was Iowa at 19-13. The 19-win mark could be a minimum for the Nittany Lions’ tournament consideration, meaning they’d have to win seven of their last 13 games.

Penn State’s road to the postseason begins with a home matchup Monday against Rutgers, which boasts two likely top-10 NBA Draft selections in Ace Bailey (19.3 points per game) and Dylan Harper (20.1 points per game). Bailey and Harper combined for 39 points and 27 rebounds in the Scarlet Knights’ 80-76 win over Penn State in Piscataway in December.

“They're going to make an incredible shot. They're going to make a play that only five percent of college basketball players can make. You just got to make it really hard for them,” Rhoades said of Rutgers’ star duo. “We've played against good players before, [but] two of them on the same team of that caliber, I'm not sure.”

This portion of the Nittany Lions’ schedule is a test, with weekend road games at Iowa and Michigan followed by a winnable Jan. 30 home date vs. Ohio State. If they’re going to prove themselves as an elite Big Ten team, the Nittany Lions have to beat elite Big Ten team, notably on the road. Rhoades said challenging stretches like the one Penn State faces are the “building blocks” of a successful program, something he’s been inching toward creating since he arrived in Happy Valley.

By now, Penn State fans, coaches, staff and players know the team is capable of hanging around with the Big Ten’s best teams. The question down the stretch will be, can the Nittany Lions turn contention into wins?

“There's urgency around here to win, and people think we can, but that's just a thought. We gotta go do it,” Rhoades said. “The Big Ten is brutal. It's freaking awesome. I love it. It's crazy. … I'm glad I'm with this team. I'm so glad I'm with our staff as we try to figure this out and build a program in the Big Ten and get to the top. But you got to go through a bunch of stuff to get there, and we're doing that right now.”

More Penn State Basketball

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Nittany Lions recover too late to beat Indiana

Penn State wins "gutcheck" Big Ten game vs. Northwestern

Daniel Mader, a May 2024 graduate of Penn State, is an Editorial Intern with The Sporting News. As a student journalist with The Daily Collegian, he served as a sports editor and covered Nittany Lions women’s basketball, men’s volleyball and more. He has also covered Penn State football for NBC Sports and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, with additional work in the Centre Daily Times, Lancaster Online and more. Follow him on X @DanielMader_ or Instagram @dmadersports.