Michigan State basketball: Series history vs. Penn State

Michigan State basketball has been on top of a lot of battles with Penn State in recent years. What’s the series’ history looking like?

Michigan State basketball is back in action Thursday night against the Penn State Nittany Lions. With non-conference play firmly behind the Spartans, they now turn their attention to the Big Ten.

Let’s take a look at the series history with Penn State before these two teams square off this Thursday in East Lansing.

MSU dominates Penn State all-time

As you may have guessed, Michigan State dominates Penn State in their all-time series. The Spartans and Nittany Lions have squared off 51 times in their history and MSU leads the series 41-10.

The Spartans, however, are only on a one-game winning streak in this matchup. Last year, these teams only played once at Penn State where MSU won 67-58. AJ Hoggard shined in what was a pretty ugly game by scoring a then career-high 23 points. Tyson Walker added 14 points and Joey Hauser also had a huge double-double with 12 points and 15 rebounds.

Penn State has won in East Lansing somewhat recently in February of 2020. Surprisingly, this was during Cassius Winston’s senior season. I don’t know about you, but I completely forgot about us losing to Penn State at home that season. Penn State was a good team that year and was ranked part of the season, but losing to them at home with that squad we had is shocking. This just shows that anything is possible on any given night in the Big Ten.

Penn State season update

Penn State has not been having a good season this year. They are 7-6 overall and 1-1 in the Big Ten. They are riding a two-game winning streak with wins against Le Moyne and Rider and they also have a solid 83-80 win over Ohio State, but that is where the good things stop for the Nittany Lions.

The Nittany Lions don’t necessarily have a bad loss on their resume, but their lack of quality wins outside of Ohio State is holding them back.

This is a critical game for MSU as it sits at 0-2 in Big Ten play. If the Spartans want any chance of winning the regular-season title, this is a must-win. Thankfully, MSU has been playing some high-level basketball recently. If that continues, I don’t see any way the Spartans lose this game.