ICYMI: Penn State baseball drops 2024 schedule

Penn State baseball is often an afterthought within the athletic department and Nittany Lions fanbase. But that all is beginning to change, starting with athletic director Pat Kraft hiring head coach Mike Gambino away from Boston College over the summer.

Now with first pitch less than a month away, anticipation is starting to build for the 2024 season. Who will Penn State baseball be meeting on the diamond this spring?

Penn State baseball faces non-conference schedule

The Big Ten is not known for having a strong baseball presence in the modern era of the game. Only three schools have won national titles: Minnesota (1956, 1960, 1964), Michigan (1953,1962), and Ohio State (1966). Last season, the conference got three teams into the NCAA Tournament, and the year before, it was only two. The point is that you have to play some tough non-conference games to help improve your strength of schedule.

Penn State baseball has done just that with its 2024 schedule. The Nittany Lions make an early season road trip to 2023 College World Series participant Stanford in late February for a three-game series. The Nittany Lions also make a midweek trip to take on Virginia, another 2023 CWS participant.

Penn State will also play Army and West Virginia for a pair of games each, both of whom made the NCAA Regionals in 2023.

Big Ten calendar is workable

The Big Ten has 13 teams, but the conference schedule only has 24 games, which makes up for just less than half of the total matchups. Penn State baseball will play both Indiana and Maryland on the road in 2024. Both teams finished in the top two in the conference with over 40 wins each and made the NCAA Tournament last year.

The Nittany Lions will get the benefit of playing both Minnesota and Northwestern this season, both of which were well below .500 in 2023. Overall, the conference schedule is pretty balanced, and Penn State will have an opportunity to win some games.

Only the top eight teams make the Big Ten Tournament in Omaha, so getting to .500 in conference play is usually the minimum to qualify. Penn State baseball will play 54 games total in 2024, 22 of them will be at home, 25 on the road, and seven at a neutral site.

What to expect from the Nittany Lions in 2024?

It is hard to predict just how good Penn State baseball will be this season. There has been an influx of transfers joining the team this offseason with the coaching change.

Mike Gambino had plenty of success in his 13 years at Boston College, making the NCAA Regionals twice and Super Regionals once. He also made the ACC Tournament four times for the Eagles. While that doesn’t sound like much, it is impressive given the geographic disadvantages of Boston College compared to other ACC schools.

Penn State baseball has been irrelevant for almost 50 years now. The last NCAA Tournament that the Nittany Lions made was in 2000, in which they advanced to the Super Regional. Penn State won one regular season conference championship in 1996 but has never won the conference title. Like other Big Ten teams, most of the success came in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Penn State advanced to the College World Series five times then, including a runner-up in 1957.

Penn State appeared in the NCAA Tournament 16 times in 25 seasons from 1952-1976. In the 47 years since, there has been just one appearance. This season is unpredictable, with a high number of new talent joining during the offseason. Making the Big Ten Tournament isn’t out of the question this year, and that should be the goal. As for the NCAA Tournament, if Gambino can do something similar to what we saw at Boston College, that would be considered a tremendous success.

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