Penn State Nittany Lions

The Penn State Nittany Lions play at the Bryce Jordan Center in University Park, a program that lives in the shadow of the school's football dynasty but has carved out its own niche of scrappy, physical Big Ten basketball. Blue-and-white crowds have seen flashes of tournament success and NIT championship runs, with the program periodically breaking through as a bracket-buster under ambitious coaching hires. It's a program still chasing sustained national relevance.

Penn State's high point remains the 1954 Final Four, an upset-filled run led by All-American Jesse Arnelle that ended with a third-place finish after a loss to eventual champion La Salle. The Nittany Lions have never won an NCAA championship and have made only about ten NCAA Tournament appearances in program history, but they have found more regular success in the NIT, winning that tournament in 2009 and 2018.