Penn State Women's Basketball Brings NCAA Hopes to Big Ten Tournament

The Lady Lions enter the Big Ten Tournament perched on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

On the way to its first NCAA Tournament in a decade, the Penn State women's basketball team hit a detour. The Lady Lions lost their point guard to injury, lost six consecutive games and went from solid seed to bubble team. Which makes the 2024 Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament such a pivotal event for Penn State.

The seventh-seeded Lady Lions meet No. 10 Wisconsin on Thursday at the Target Center in Minneapolis. The winner faces second-seeded Iowa, a foreboding matchup for an NCAA bubble team. But the Lady Lions have won two straight entering the tournament, and head coach Carolyn Kieger sees some momentum building with her team.

"We knew March is what we wanted to be ready for," Kieger told reporters in State College after Penn State closed the regular season with a 90-34 win over Minnesota. "We wanted to playing our best basketball, we wanted to be ready to make a deep run into this conference championship and put ourselves in a position to hopefully make the NCAA Tournament."

Penn State (18-11, 9-9 Big Ten) has not made the NCAA Tournament since 2014, which Kieger has called a "chip on our shoulder" for this season. This has been the best season of Kieger's five at Penn State, marking her first record above .500 and the team's first with 18 wins since 2016-17. But it could have been so much more.

Penn State closed January with a 16-5 record, boosted by a six-game Big Ten win streak that was the program's longest since 2014. At the time, ESPN projected Penn State as a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But January ended with point guard Tay Valladay sustaining a season-ending injury against Minnesota. The Lady Lions lost their next six, finally ending the streak at Purdue on Feb. 28. Even after rolling Minnesota by 56 points at home Sunday (Kieger called it a "statement" win), Penn State now sits as a bubble team. 

ESPN's latest bracketology projects Penn State among the first four teams out of the NCAA Tournament, while NBC Sports puts Penn State in a First Four game. The Lady Lions definitely need to beat Wisconsin on Wednesday to protect their tournament hopes. Upsetting Iowa to reach 20 wins would clinch it, but that seems a longshot. So Penn State likely will spend a nervous week waiting on the March 17 selection show.

Which is why Kieger has framed this tournament run around one word.

"Resiliency," she said after the Minnesota game. "We talked about who we want to be when adversity hits. We weathered the storm. We obviously had to figure out some things as we worked through that six-game losing streak. But just like the six-game losing streak, we had a six-game winning streak, too. So we can be that same team."

How to watch Penn State in the Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament

Penn State meets Wisconsin in Thursday's second round of the 2024 Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament from Minneapolis. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET on Big Ten Network. Streamers can check catch the game with FuboTV (start your free trial).

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