Penn State 8-14 (0-10 in the Big Ten) at Nebraska 11-12 (2-8 in the Big Ten)
Where: Bob Devaney Sports Center
When: Saturday, February 9, 9:00 PM
TV: ESPNU
On January 19th, Penn State hosted Nebraska in a matchup of winless teams in the Big Ten. Only one of those teams ended the day with a win, obviously, and it was the less than mighty Cornhuskers. Nebraska snuck out of Happy Valley with a bizarre 68-64 victory that involved Penn State missing several free throws in the last minute of the game. The Cornhuskers essentially were trying to give the Nittany Lions the win, and Penn State insisted that Nebraska take the win for themselves.
Nebraska freshman guard Shavon Shields scored a career high 29 points against Penn State in that win, going 10 for 11 from the floor and making all eight of his free throw attempts. Jermaine Marshall led Penn State with 18 points, and D.J. Newbill led Penn State with 7 rebounds and 6 assists.
This will again be a matchup of the two worst teams in the Big Ten, Penn State is 0-10 in conference and Nebraska is 2-8 in the Big Ten. The game is as close to meaningless as it gets, basically just playing for pride and to avoid further embarrassment at this point.
Nebraska is averaging 58.7 points per game on the season, while Penn State is averaging 60.7 points per game. Those aren’t only from the Big Ten, those numbers include non-conference games as well. If I were to put Big Ten scoring averages for these teams, it would look like two elementary school teams going against each other. While sorting through all the statistics for these teams today, I couldn’t find any that weren’t hilarious and just utterly terrible. Penn State is 146th in the nation in rebounding, while Nebraska is 272nd.
Newbill and Marshall provide Penn State with one of the top scoring back courts in the country, while guard Dylan Talley and forward Brandon Ubel are Nebraska’s top players.
For Penn State to win this game, it will need to continue it’s aggressive, turnover forcing defense, and they will need to get off to a quick start offensively to get whatever crowd that shows up for this game to stay quiet. Nebraska does have the capability to play pretty well at home, they blew out Northwestern at home by 15 points. I’ve been saying this for weeks, and I’ll say it again, this is the Nittany Lions last realistic chance to get a conference win, so they better bring the energy.
My prediction: Penn State 58, Nebraska 61
