STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Penn State Basketball beat Maryland 85-69 to close the regular season on a high note.
The Nittany Lions dispatched a Terrapin team who really didn’t look like they wanted to be playing the final game of the college basketball season in the entire nation. The first half was relatively close, with Penn State leading by just four at the half.
The second half was a different story, however. Penn State Basketball was led by an amazing performance by Qudus Wahab, 19 points and 15 rebounds and Ace Baldwin‘s 17 points and 11 assists. The Nittany Lions pushed the lead to double digits and the lackluster Terrapins had no counter-punch. Penn State was even able to play rarely used seniors Dan Conlan and Andy Christos, much to the joy of the Bryce Jordan Center crowd.
Penn State honored seven seniors, joining Christos and Conlan were fifth year seniors RayQuandis Mitchell, Leo O’Boyle, Wahab, and potential returnees thanks to the covid-year Puff Johnson and Baldwin.
The Nittany Lions finished 15-16 (9-11) in a three way tie for ninth, unfortunately losing that tiebreaker pushes Penn State Basketball to the No. 11 seed. They will play the No. 14 seed Michigan in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament on Wednesday at 9:00 pm on Peacock.
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NittanyCentral is his second reporting job following the Men's Basketball program. He co-founded and co-hosts the Shots Gotta Fall - The Penn State Basketball Podcast (the premiere, the best, the only) with Steve Travis.
Smith's most proud moment covering the team was seeing the national No. 9 ranking during Pat Chambers' last year. His most embarrassing moment was spending almost a thousand dollars to travel 2,000 miles in 46 hours to watch the Nittany Lions lose to Temple in the 2011 NCAA Tournament (screw you Juan Fernandez).