Mental toughness key to Penn State basketball winning streak

Penn State basketball (12-11, 6-6 Big Ten) continued its winning ways Thursday night, downing Iowa (13-10, 5-7) 89-79 in the Bryce Jordan Center for a third consecutive win. The first time that the Nittany Lions have won three straight games since November, Penn State is back above .500 after losing five out of eight games in January. Following the victory, head coach Mike Rhoades discussed his team’s “line in the sand” moment that has strengthened the collective mental resolve of the Nittany Lions.

Mike Rhoades, Penn State have “raised our standards” for mental toughness following winning streak

The month of January wasn’t easy on Penn State basketball. Losers of five of eight, the Nittany Lions suffered several drubbings on the road and late collapses at home. Transparent about the “peaks and valleys” of managing his first year in the program, Mike Rhoades openly and repeatedly called on his players to become tougher.

The Nittany Lions have responded to their coach’s pleas over the last two weeks. Winning its first road game of the season on January 31 at Rutgers, Penn State went on to blow out Indiana on Saturday in the program’s first victory in Assembly Hall since 2014.

Penn State kept the momentum going Thursday night, using a late surge to gut out a ten-point win over Iowa. Ace Baldwin led the way again for the Nittany Lions, notching his second straight 20+ point game.

After taking down Iowa, Mike Rhoades discussed how a mentality shift in the Penn State locker room has led to the recent hot streak.

“I mean, that’s what you want to see as a coach,” he said. “At times, [we’ve been] just not good enough. Not tough enough. Not mentally tough enough. But the last ten days, we’ve been tougher. We’ve been mentally tougher. We didn’t make excuses. We didn’t react to poor play and kept it poor. That’s all the credit to those guys, because they’re the ones who go through it.

“As a coach, you can point it out, but it doesn’t matter until they get it and they call each other out and say, ‘This is enough.’ Sometimes, as a team, you have to draw a line in the sand when it comes to mental toughness; say, ‘Enough is enough; we got to figure this out.’ And they have. Doesn’t mean it’ll be perfect next game, but we’ve raised our standards in the area of mental toughness because of it.”

Another road test ahead for the Nittany Lions

Off two straight road wins last week, Penn State basketball will leave the Bryce Jordan Center once again Sunday to face Northwestern in Evanston. The Nittany Lions let a ten-point lead slip away in a 76-72 loss to the Wildcats at home on January 10.

Tip-off on Sunday is set for 1 p.m. The game will air on the Big Ten Network.

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