Bracketology: Penn State Basketball Continues to Walk Thin Line

Penn State basketball moved back off ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s “Bracketology” on Friday’s update.

This continues a weeks-long trend for the Nittany Lions who have fluctuated in and out of the bracket prediction while going 2-4 in January. The path to the NCAA Tournament is narrow and provides little room for error, especially in the Big Ten. With two road games coming up, PSU will look to return to State College with two Quad 1 wins.

THE WRONG TYPE OF JANUARY MADNESS FOR PENN STATE?

After Monday’s victory over Rutgers, Penn State improved to 3-5 in conference play. On Friday, the team begins a two-game road trip against Iowa (12-7, 3-5) and N0. 21 Michigan (14-4, 6-1). In January alone, PSU has traveled 4,086 miles (including the trip to Iowa), which is more than it did in November and December combined (3,206 miles across 13 games). That mileage has skyrocketed because of the Big Ten travel schedule.

“I’ll be honest with you, in all my years, this is the craziest schedule,” Mike Rhoades said Wednesday.

“… It is what it is. I didn’t make it, so we got to go do it, but … I don’t understand the month of January for the Big Ten because of how many games you play, the lack of days off, the travel now that’s included in it. You know, the one thing you want to do in your league is have some awesome games, but also making sure that you protect all the teams too moving into March. But the month of January is ridiculous, from all of that.”

February won’t tamper Penn State’s flight patterns either, as the Nittany Lions will have a west coast trip to California to play UCLA (13-6, 4-4) and USC (12-7, 4-4).

A full updated list of the tournament seedings can be found here. The SEC continues to project strong with a bid total of 13. The Big Ten remains second with 10. Lunardi’s next update will be on Tuesday.