Basketball: Women's

The No. 9 Lady Lions (23-5, 13-3 Big Ten) are less than an hour away before they begin their quest at a Big Ten tournament title. The squad is looking to complete a season sweep of the conference hardware, as they already won the regular season outright, thanks to finishing conference play 12-1. They lost two of their first three conference games—both at home—before running through conference opponents en route to coach Coquese Washington’s first Big Ten championship.

The Lions who earned the No. 1 seed for the tournament will square off against the No. 8 seed Minnesota at 6 pm. The game will air on the Big Ten Network and the Lions look to win their game of tic-tac-toe against the Gophers, winning all three matchups this season. Penn State won both meetings this season against the Gophers, but struggled in Minnesota, before escaping with a 68-65 win.

In the last outing, the Lions thrashed the Gophers 74-51 and clinched the regular season title outright. The Lions were led by sophomore guard Maggie Lucas, who dropped 24 on the Gophers and also chimed in eight dimes. One of the main advantages for the Lions was the 3-point shooting, as the team shot 33 percent from beyond the arc and landed five more bombs than the Gophers.

Tonight’s predictions:

Tim Gilbert: Lady Lions win 79-51 and advance to the semi-finals. Look for junior center Nikki Greene to stay out of foul trouble and only record two fouls.


Dan Norton: Lady Lions win by 14 points. Watch for Talia East to make an impact on tonight’s game.


Aaron Dunlevy: Lady Lions win 74-66 and advance to play another game. I think that it will be a lot closer than expected and the post players will have huge contributions. Expect the bigs to give the Lions a 15-point plus advantage inside the paint.