Penn State Basketball Climbs NET Rankings

Thursday’s win will go down as a Quad 1 victory. The full rankings can be found here and an explanation of the NCAA’s NET system can be found here.

PSU is now 8-1, marking the team’s best start since the 2014-15 season.

Against the Boilermakers, Penn State’s defense powered it to victory, forcing a season-high 24 turnovers and scoring 32 points off those turnovers. In the first half alone, Purdue had 14 turnovers and was 8-of-20 from the field.

Five Nittany Lions scored double-digit points, led by Ace Baldwin Jr.’s 17 points and six assists.

Storm the Court: Penn State Basketball Dominates No. 8 Purdue For Signature Win

“I thought we set the tone with our full-court defense,” head coach Mike Rhoades said postgame.

“We made it hard for them to get into their offense … I say deny (and) disrupt with great discipline. I just thought we did that a lot today and that was huge.”

The Purdue win was Penn State’s first Big Ten opening win since the 2017-18 season when it beat Iowa to start conference play. Thursday night also marked PSU’s first win against an AP top-10 opponent since 2019 (defeated No. 4 Maryland) and its first win against Purdue since February 2020.

In less than two years, Rhoades has guided Penn State to a 3-2 record against AP top-15 teams, with wins against No. 11 Wisconsin and No. 12 Illinois last season.

Conference play continues Tuesday. Penn State will travel to Piscataway, N.J. to take on Rutgers. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. from the Jersey Mike’s Arena.