Hoops: PSU announces spot in Emerald Coast Classic Thanksgiving weekend
Penn State men's basketball announced its participation in the Emerald Coast Classic this Thanksgiving weekend.
The first pieces of the Nittany Lions' 2021-22 hoops schedule are set.
Announced via Twitter Tuesday afternoon, Micah Shrewsberry's first season at the helm of the men's basketball program will include a tournament appearance in the 2021 Emerald Coast Classic. The tournament will include a home game to open the first round against Saint Francis College (Brooklyn), followed by on-site games against LSU and either Wake Forest or Oregon State in Niceville, Fla.
The three games are Penn State's first officially announced matchups of the 2021-22 season, and mark the beginning of Shrewsberry's tenure with the program.
In St. Francis, the Nittany Lions will face a Terriers program that finished with a 9-10 overall record, including a 9-9 mark in the Northeast Conference. The game will be played at the Bryce Jordan Center on Nov. 18 with a tip time that is still to be determined.
Penn State's second-round matchup, a guaranteed game, will come against LSU on the campus of Northwest Florida State College (Raider Arena), just north of Destin, Fla. In the Tigers, the Nittany Lions will battle a program coming off a 19-10 season that included a championship loss to Alabama in the SEC Tournament.
Seeded eighth in the East bracket of the NCAA Tournament, then, the Tigers first topped St. Bonaventure before losing to the top-seeded Michigan Wolverines in the second round.
Depending on the outcome, Penn State will then face either the winner of Wake Forest and Oregon State in the championship round of the tournament on Saturday, Nov. 27, or the loser of that matchup in the third-place consolation game.
The Beavers are coming off a season in which they produced an improbable run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament after emerging as the champions of the PAC-12. Beating UCLA, Oregon and Colorado en route to the conference championship, the Beavers followed the feat as a 12-seed in the Midwest bracket of the NCAA Tournament with wins against 5-seed Tennessee, 11-seed Oklahoma State, and 8-seed Loyola-Chicago before finally succumbing to 2-seed Houston in the regional final.
Wake Forest, meanwhile, finished its 2020-21 campaign with a NET ranking of 196, compiling a 5-16 record for the year.
Penn State returns four significant contributors from the 2020-21 season in John Harrar, Myles Dread, Seth Lundy and Sam Sessoms, who have been complemented this offseason by the additions of Jalen Pickett, Jaheam Cornwall, Jevonnie Scott and Greg Lee.
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