Northwestern’s turnover problems may be bad, but no Big Ten team has been worse at taking care of the ball than Penn State.
The Nittany Lions (6-11, 0-4 Big Ten) are one of three teams in the conference to have a negative turnover margin (NU and Michigan are the other two), but their minus 3.24 margin is 2.3 turnovers worse than the 10th-place Wolverines.
Penn State has plenty of youth — of its seven players who see significant playing time, four are first-year players. Freshman forward Geary Claxton has started every game this season, and averages 11.7 points and 6.2 rebounds.
The Nittany Lions don’t have a true center, which means NU (8-8, 1-3) may try to get as many touches as possible for center Mike Thompson, who averages 11.9 points and a team-leading 5.3 rebounds.
Penn State is led by sophomore point guard Ben Luber, who played nearly every minute for the Nittany Lions last season, and junior Aaron Johnson, a 6-foot-9, 240-pound forward who leads the league with 9.9 rebounds per game.
Junior forward Travis Parker also has given the Nittany Lions a boost. A junior college transfer, Parker has started all but one game for Penn State this season, and his 12.2 points per game ranks second on the team, behind Johnson’s 14.7.
The Nittany Lions recently lost sophomore guard Marlon Smith, who announced Jan. 15 he will not play for the remainder of the season due to a small blood clot in a brain artery.
Smith, who earned his stripes alongside Luber last season and started every game, played in all 45 minutes of his team’s 63-61 overtime win against NU in State College, Pa., last year. A team doctor said Smith will be on a blood thinner for the next three months.
NU and Penn State last met in the 2004 Big Ten tournament, a game the Cats won with their pressure defense. NU forced 26 turnovers and set a single-game conference tournament record with 22 steals — including six from forward Vedran Vukusic — in a 57-52 victory.
Penn State has lost nine of its last 10 games, the most recent defeat coming at home to Michigan, 66-62.
Reach Anthony Tao at [email protected].
