As March
Madness roles on, Penn State basketball fans watch on feeling a bit of a
longing. Maybe longing isn't the right word. Frustration. When you fill out
your bracket this year, there will be no Penn State team to root on. However, there
will be seven other Big Ten schools in the tournament. Yet, sports fans are
used to seeing the Nittany Lions near the top of the Big Ten leaderboard in
almost every other sport. Let's quickly run through a few other Penn State
Sports Team's…
-
Women’s volleyball won
the NCAA National Title this year, their 6th title in just 8 years.
-
Men's wrestling had won
4 straight NCAA National titles before finishing 6th in the nation
this year.
-
Women’s field hockey
has more Big Ten titles than any other school in the conference.
-
Women's basketball.
The Lady Lions have reached the NCAA Tournament more than any other school in conference history. Quite the accomplishment.
-
Fencing teams have been either champions or runner up in 21 of 25 years.
I haven't even touched on some other well known sports and already, across
the board, we see huge success for Penn State sports teams. Where do we not see
any success? Men’s Basketball. Sadly, this year has been no different than most
other years. Heck, this team wasn't even invited to the NIT. As a basketball
fan and Penn State student, it’s frustrating. To see the other large state
schools in the Big Ten make the NCAA tournament and win games, I wonder, why Penn
State can’t garner that same success.
Let’s
look at how Penn State fared in offense this year…
-
191st in
Points per Game: 66.9
-
125th in
Rebounds per Game: 35.3
-
328th in
Assists per Game: 9.9
-
258th in
Field Goal %: .420
Maybe the
Defense was better?
-
156th in
Points Allowed: 66.2
-
198th in
Steals per Game: 6.1
These are
poor numbers, but we can’t just glance at some rankings to explain the team’s failure.
To compare, let’s look at Michigan, which finished a disappointing year by
Michigan standards.
Differential
-
240th in
Points Per Game: 64.7 (PSU
191) (-49)
-
329th in
Rebounds per Game: 30.2 (PSU
125) (-204)
-
231st in
Assists Per Game: 11.9 (PSU
328) (+97)
-
224th in
Field Goal %: .426 (PSU
258) (+24)
-
102nd in
Points Allowed: 64 (PSU
156) (+54)
-
275th in
Steals per Game: 5.4 (PSU
198) (-77)
What do
these numbers tell us? Not much. Michigan actually had worse numbers in a few
categories. Yet they still had 4 more Big Ten wins than Penn State. I was
curious, because if you followed the season, you would have noticed that Penn
State started the season 12-1. That’s right, 12 wins and 1 loss. The team
finished the season on a 6-15 run, culminating with a meager 18-16 record. Next,
I checked the Strength of Schedule (SOS) and Basketball Power Index (BPI). The
BPI is a measure that takes into account multiple variables and comes up with a
power ranking for each team. It’s an accurate measure for analysts to gauge
just how good a basketball team really is. 100 is the best score you can have.
To give some context, teams like Wisconsin and Duke are in the mid to low 90s.
As I looked around, relative to other Big Ten teams Penn State wasn’t far off
in opponents BPI. Meaning, Penn State played teams with an average BPI almost
on par with other successful Big Ten teams. Let’s have a look.
-
Michigan State Average
BPI: 66.7
-
Iowa Opponents Average
BPI: 65.2
-
Penn State Opponents
Average BPI: 62.4
Not that
far off, but I realized this didn’t explain everything. Before Big Ten games
start, teams play 13 non-conference games. Teams are able to schedule whatever
games they want during this stretch, and many teams look to bolster experience
and toughness by playing some solid opponents. I disaggregated the data and
calculated the average opponents BPI for purely non-conference games. That’s
when things became a littler clearer. Below is what I found.
Non-Conference
Average Opponents BPI
-
Wisconsin 61.63
-
Michigan St. 54.96
-
Michigan 54.89
-
Rutgers 54.36
-
Iowa: 54.20
-
Maryland 53.72
-
Purdue 52.93
-
Indiana 51.08
-
Illinois 50.89
-
Northwestern 49.49
-
Ohio State 49.41
-
Nebraska 49.32
-
Penn State: 47.53
By
measure of opponents BPI, Penn State played the weakest non-conference schedule
in the Big Ten… by far. The outlier is obviously Wisconsin, a true title
contender, they looked to mesh with the best in the beginning of the season, a
notable loss being to Duke. However the rest of the teams hover in the low 50s.
Except for one… Penn State had far and away the weakest non-conference
schedule. This season it showed, 12-1 against these low quality opponents. Once
Big Ten play showed up, Penn State looked unready and unable to cope with this
newfound talent, finishing up 5-16 in conference games. Smart coaches and smart
fans understand, non-conference games is not a time to pad the coaches win
sheet, it’s to get the team ready for conference games. Sure, let’s concede
every team does schedule a few doozies to steamroll and boost confidence in the
beginning of the season. But that is balanced out by tougher opponents as well.
For instance, Iowa’s non-conference schedule included games against 6 teams
that made the big dance (Texas, ND State, Hampton, UNC, Iowa State, and
Northern Iowa). There’s a reason Iowa went dancing this year and Penn State
didn't even come close.
Penn
State finished 2nd to last in the Big Ten, behind only Rutgers. Even
Nebraska, and it’s hard to imagine how they recruit basketball talent out in cornhusker
land, finished ahead of Penn State in the Big Ten this year. This is
unacceptable. At a school with so much success in other athletics, this is not
a standard the school should be setting. Yet here they are commending the head
coach. Just last week Head Coach Pat Chambers received a two year contract extension, giving him until
the 2018-2019 season to get things turned around. Beyond that, the AD has
consistently talked up Chambers to the media (Link). If this is the bar that Penn State is setting for basketball, then it’s hard to
see how the school will be anything more than the abysmal program that is known
as Penn State basketball. For now, enjoy the emptiness of the BJC and the disappointment
year after year. I’ll leave you with this clip, for this video is Penn State
Basketball in a nutshell. Please show me one other team that has their point guard
inbound the basketball to break a press. Seriously, leave me a comment and let
me know, I’d be curious to find out.