It’s hard to believe that the Penn State men’s basketball team was one of the sixteen remaining teams in the NCAA tournament just two seasons ago. It was head coach Jerry Dunn’s sixth season at the helm for the Nittany Lions, and he had the program poised for a turnaround.
But Dunn’s seventh and eighth seasons as head coach have been consecutive nightmares. The core of Penn State’s talent from that magical 2000-01 season has left campus, and so has Penn State’s success. Last season the Lions sputtered to a 7-21 record (3-13 Big Ten), but one of those conference wins came at the expense of Wisconsin.
UW edged out Penn State, 66-63, Jan. 26, 2002, at the Kohl Center, despite 19 points from the Lions’ Brandon Watkins. However, a few weeks later, Feb. 9, the Lions’ Penn held the Badgers to 39.6 percent shooting in a 51-49 victory. After a UW run produced a 40-30 second half lead for the Badgers, Sharif Chambliss scored the next eight points for the Lions. He later finished the game scoring the last six points of the contest to finish with 20 in Penn State’s first Big Ten victory of the season.
Penn State can only hope they play the Badgers (14-4, 4-2 Big Ten) this season as well as they did last year, heading into Saturday afternoon’s contest at the Kohl Center. Wisconsin currently holds a four-game winning streak and will be in the final game of a three-game home stand, where the Badgers are 11-1 on the season, including 3-0 in the Big Ten.
If anybody knows about streaks this season, it’s Penn State (5-12, 0-6). After opening the season with six straight losses, the Lions ripped off five straight wins heading into the conference season. Unfortunately, what followed was another six-game losing streak.
The most heartbreaking of those losses was a 76-75 contest against Minnesota Wednesday night at University Park. Penn State sophomore forward Jan Jagla fouled Minnesota’s Rick Rickert with just seven seconds to play, providing the winning margin for the Golden Gophers. Watkins penetrated the lane with five seconds left, but his pass to senior forward B.J. Vossekuil didn’t connect as time expired. Jagla’s foul on Rickert could only leave Dunn in frustration.
“That was a foul that we didn’t want to commit at all,” Dunn said. “I didn’t see it from where we were sitting, but the foul was called.”
If Penn State plans on beating Wisconsin, which leads the all-time series 12-7, it’ll have to get major production from its top two players; Watkins and Chambliss. Despite both being just six feet tall, this guard combination is about the only thing that’s given Penn State’s opponents trouble.
Watkins, one of two seniors on the team along with Vossekuil, leads the team in both points and assists per game, with 14.6 and 3.9, respectively. Chambliss, a junior who hails from Racine, Wis., is averaging 14 points and 2.3 assists per game. Beyond those two, however, nobody averages more than freshman Aaron Johnson’s 8.9 points per game. By contrast, the Badgers currently have four players averaging in double figures. On the boards, Jagla leads the Lions with 6.9 rebounds per game.
Perhaps the only way Penn State can walk into the Kohl Center and upset Wisconsin is if both Watkins and Chambliss, an all-Big Ten honorable mention last season, explode for big games. The outcome will likely rely on the defensive matchup between Badger guards Freddie Owens and Devin Harris and Penn State’s backcourt duo.
For Dunn and the Lions, this game is about getting momentum started if nothing else, and Dunn is a head coach certainly capable of doing so. Although the last two seasons have been bumps in the road, he’s been able to give life to a basketball program playing in the cold shadows of Joe Paterno’s football machine. Dunn led the team to the NIT finals in 1998 and the NIT semifinals in 2000, while taking them to the NCAAs in 1996 and 2001.
For the Badgers, this game is about keeping the momentum of a four-game winning streak before moving on to the tougher part of their schedule.
