By Kevin Wesley
Five weeks ago, this column stated two absolutes about the Penn State basketball team as it prepared for Big Ten conference play.
One was that Ed DeChellis would not be fired this year. We’ll certainly stand by that one.
The other was that the Nittany Lions had no chance of making the NCAA tournament. Certainly, they still might not—their 12-8 record with half the Big Ten schedule to play leaves them little room for error—but no chance? Yeah, we blew that. The way DeChellis’ team is playing right now, they’ve got a great chance at making the Big Dance.
In our defense, we’re hardly the only ones who never saw this coming.
With Saturday’s 56-52 home victory over No. 15 Wisconsin, the Lions knocked off their third ranked opponent in as many weeks. The win over the Badgers—a program Penn State hadn’t beaten since 2003—might have been the most impressive of all of them. It comes on the heels of Wednesday’s 65-51 win over Iowa, putting the Lions at 5-4 in league play.
There’s much to do before Penn State can count on its first NCAA tourney berth since 2001, but that conference record, that trio of top-20 upsets and the team’s impressive strength of schedule mean the dream is very much alive. That it is, just five weeks after (say it with us now…) a 10-point home loss to Maine, is nothing short of remarkable.
We’re hard-pressed to think of a Penn State team (or any team, for that matter) that has followed such a weak non-conference showing with such an inspired run through conference play; keeping in mind, the Lions’ 5-4 Big Ten mark doesn’t show how close they came to road upsets of Purdue and No. 1 Ohio State. As such, it’s tough to compare this squad, but the intensity, fearlessness and joy with which these Lions have played over the past month is reminding us more and more of the last Penn State team to make the NCAA tournament.
Like this year’s team, that 2001 squad was led by a cold-blooded shooting guard and aided by a couple of versatile wingmen. The star was Joe Crispin, who ended his career as Penn State’s No. 2 all-time leading scorer and who, like current star Talor Battle, never met a 26-foot jump shot he didn’t like. It was Crispin, after a second-round NCAA upset of North Carolina that remains one of the biggest wins in program history, who put that team’s belief into words.
‘I really expected us to win the game,’ Crispin said after the Lions knocked off the Tar Heels. ‘I totally expected it.’
On Saturday, it was Battle at the podium in the bowels of the Bryce Jordan Center, smiling as he faced the postgame media. Battle, who scored 20 of his 22 points in the second half, was asked if his faith had waivered after Wisconsin built an early 13-point lead. Surely, he and his teammates must’ve thought the Badgers were about to beat them once again.
Battle answered with a confident grin: ‘We don’t have those thoughts no more.’
Like that 2001 team, these Lions are—amazingly, considering where they were five weeks ago—playing like they really don’t think they’ll lose. To anyone. Of course, that Penn State team went on the road in November of 2000 and knocked off a loaded Kentucky squad in Lexington. This year’s team lacks such a non-conference win from which to build confidence; yet somehow, over the past month, these Lions seem to have drawn their fearlessness from thin air.
‘This has been a great group. They have given us everything,’ DeChellis said afterward, speaking particularly of a senior class that many felt, outside of Battle, had been something of a disappointment before this run. ‘This a long race, and we’re halfway through it, but I like the fiber of our team. They really believe they can win.’
However they found that belief, they did it, and a Big Ten season that seemed to promise 11 weeks of misery now holds the potential for so much more. Penn State almost certainly needs a half dozen more wins to keep its NCAA hopes alive, but that number isn’t hard to imagine. Five weeks ago, it was impossible.
If Battle can keep being Battle, emulating Crispin’s fearlessness and scoring outbursts, and if Jeff Brooks and David Jackson can keep recalling the timely production that Gyasi Cline Heard and Titus Ivory provided a decade ago, this squad might end the program’s NCAA drought after all. Penn State fans couldn’t have predicted it, but if it happens? They’ll be absolutely thrilled.
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