After an eventful night at the Bryce Jordan Center this past Thursday, Penn State makes the trip down to the City of Brotherly Love for a battle with Indiana.

This is Penn State’s third consecutive season playing a home game at the Palestra. The Nittany Lions split their previous two matchups losing to Purdue in 2023 and beating Michigan in 2024.

Penn State arrives in Philadelphia with a 12-2 overall record and a 2-1 conference record. It has taken care of home-court in Big Ten play, defeating both Northwestern and Purdue. Its only true road loss of the season came to Rutgers just a few weeks ago. 

ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi released an updated projected bracket on Friday, with Penn State in the “Last Four Byes” column as a 10 seed. Indiana, however, did not make the cut in Lunardi’s projection. With high expectations coming out of Bloomington preseason, the Mike Woodson-led Hoosiers have been disappointing, to say the least. 

Indiana still has a great 11-3 (2-1) record, but the Hoosier’s metrics have been subpar. They rank 14th in the conference in both the NET rankings and KenPom. Similarly to Penn State, they’ve taken care of home court in conference play so far, defeating Minnesota then Rutgers this past Thursday. Their sole conference road contest came against Nebraska, which resulted in a near 20-point loss.

What are the keys to the game for Penn State? How can they exploit this underwhelming Big Ten squad? Let’s break it down further.

Indiana struggles from three

• Indiana shoots 32% from three as a team
• 341st (out of 364) in country in percent of total points from threes
• 25th in country in percent of total points from two point shots
• Indiana shot 12/27 from three vs Rutgers Thursday, seems like an anomaly
• Yanic Konan Niederhauser MUST makes his presence felt in the paint

Offensive rebounding disadvantage

• Indiana ranks 1st and 2nd in conference play (among the 18 Big Ten teams) in allowing and getting offensive rebounds, respectively
• Penn State ranks 15th and 16th in the same categories
• Penn State has allowed 28 offensive rebounds in their last two conference games, compared to their 15 offensive rebounds
• Indiana will get plenty of second chance points each possession, a glaring weakness of Penn State’s

Ace Baldwin Jr. must stay aggressive

• Baldwin did not attempt a shot until late in the first half against Northwestern
• Felt passive, trying to draw fouls
• Indiana guard Myles Rice should be assigned to him, a great defender
• Baldwin is the key to the game, has to attack the rim against Indiana’s interior defense, while using his presence to create open shots for Hicks, Dilione V, etc.

Turnovers & the Penn State press

• Indiana does not take good care of the ball, but have been better in conference play
• Indiana committed 14 turnovers against Minnesota, a team who is not top 200 in the country in defensive turnover percentage
• Penn State was too aggressive in their press versus Northwestern, which created a plethora of open threes and layups
• Penn State must to a better job at not selling out for steals, but keeping the offense in front of them

Penn State vs Indiana odds and prediction 

Odds provided by FanDuel Sportsbook

*Lines subject to change*

Moneyline

• Penn State -255
• Indiana +205

Spread

• Penn State -6.5 (-105)
• Indiana +6.5 (-115)

Total

• 157.5 (over -112/under -108)

Prediction

• Penn State 80, Indiana 71