Penn State: not a basketball school! While Penn State football has a long history of Rose Bowl titles and white outs and national championships, Penn State basketball has a long history of being ignored. In this sense, the Nittany Lions' 76-59 demolition of Texas A&M wasn't just Penn State's first NCAA Tournament win since 2001, it marked a watershed moment for a Penn State basketball program that rapidly rebuilt itself in head coach Micah Shrewberry's first year, validation for a squad of underdogs and mid-major transfers like Jalen Pickett and Andrew Funk who kept the faith even after a 2-8 mid-season swoon threatened to torpedo their postseason dreams.

“Whenever you take a poop, you never leave it in the toilet,” senior guard Myles Dread said to The Daily Collegian after Penn State's opening NCAA Tournament game. “You always flush it. So, like, that was our poop. We flushed it and moved on to the next game and played as hard as we could.”

Predicted to finish 11th in the Big Ten in the preseason poll, Penn State caught fire at the end of the regular season and made it to the finals of the Big Ten Tournament. This hot shooting carried over to their NCAA Tournament opener; against Texas A&M, Penn State drilled 14 three-pointers, the second-most of any team on the opening day of March Madness.

Penn State's rousing performance was keyed by senior leaders Jalen Pickett and Andrew Funk. While Pickett played a characteristically brilliant game (19 points, 7 rebounds, 8 assists), Funk's three-point laser show was a revelation. A graduate transfer from Bucknell, Funk nailed eight of 10 threes for 27 points, setting a program record for both threes and points in an NCAA Tournament game.