Penn State basketball has a tough task this season, not only with an interim head coach after Patrick Chambers’ recent resignation, but also having to replace star Lamar Stevens from last season’s sure NCAA Tournament team.
But while many might be expecting a big dropoff for the Nittany Lions, Ken Pomeroy’s preseason rankings suggest that may not necessarily be the case under interim head coach Jim Ferry.
At KenPom.com, the site has Penn State at No. 64 in the country. That doesn’t seem too bad.
Then again, PSU is the third-lowest rated Big Ten team, ahead of only Northwestern (70) and Nebraska (118).
That just goes to show how tough the Big Ten is, with nine teams being in the preseason top 27.
Here’s a look at KenPom’s top 10:
1 Baylor
2 Gonzaga
3 Duke
4 Villanova
5 Kansas
6 Texas Tech
7 Wisconsin
8 West Virginia
9 Texas
10 Ohio State
That’s two Big Ten teams in the top 10, and Iowa (12), Michigan State (15), Michigan (17), Illinois (18) and Purdue (25) give the conference seven teams in the top 25.
Also, Indiana is 26th and Rutgers 27, so that’s nine teams in the top 27.
Other PA schools in the KenPom rankings:
83 Pitt
84 Duquesne
151 LaSalle
154 Temple
160 Saint Joe’s
203 Drexel
208 Penn
229 Lafayette
230 Robert Morris
236 Saint Francis
240 Bucknell
294 Lehigh
