After a lopsided double-digit win over Purdue, Penn State has climbed eight spots in the most recent update of the NCAA’s NET Rankings.
On Monday’s initial update, Penn State came in at 34th. Throughout the week, PSU crawled up to the 31st position before leaping eight spots to 23rd.
After Penn State’s dominant win over Purdue, the Nittany Lions are now 23rd in the NCAA NET Rankings 📈📈
They started the week at 34. Thursday’s win will go down as a Quad 1 victory.
— Brennan Valladares (@Valladares7B) December 6, 2024
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.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.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.
