About Basketball Team
It’s that time once again to check out The Penn State Nittany Lions take on all challengers at their home arena, The Bryce Jordan Center. With a brand new season full of familiar seasoned players and brand new incoming faces, this year may be the best the Lions have had. Especially when you think about the bold new strategies devised by head coach Micah Shrewsberrie in his latest season at the helm. Over 15,000 fans flock to the arena to watch some of the best college NCAA basketball games around.
Tickets are on sale now for basketball’s best fans to check out the Bryce Jordan Center and see the Lions play. That means lines are forming as we speak for all upcoming games and events. You won’t want to miss the action.
And now, you won’t have to. Because you can keep up to date on all upcoming Lions home games via this website. Then a few simple clicks and you’ll have the tickets you need for this incredible team’s next big match.
Don’t delay! Because these tickets are only available for a limited time.
About Pennsylvania State Arena
The Nittany Lions home arena is the Bryce Jordan Center in University Park, Pennsylvania. The center is located on the University Park campus of the Pennsylvania State University. It was originally opened to the public in 1996 and is the largest such venue between Philly and Pittsburgh.
The venue was originally built to replace Rec Hall as the home for the university’s men’s and women’s basketball teams, the Pride of the Lions Pep Band, and its student section. And while hosting their games is its primary purpose, it also sees use for a variety of events including concerts, circuses, and commencement ceremonies.
The arena received its name from former university president, Bryce Jordan, who played a key role in acquiring the fund to build the arena in the first place.
Notable Events
In addition to Penn State Nittany Lions games, the arena has also seen use for numerous concerts and WWE events including Monday Night Raw. This includes the venue hosting a recording of part of Aerosmith’s 1998 live album, A Little South of Sanity, In fact, Steven Tyler can be heard yelling “State College” to rile up the crowd during “Love in an Elevator.” The venue was also used for filming of the 2000 hit Backstreet Boys’ song, “The One”.
The arena also saw use during a 2001 Britney Spears concert as part of her Dream Within a Dream Tour. Which saw some performances taped with a new technology at the time. The footage was used as bonus video in her video game “Britney’s Dance Beat” for the PS2.
More recently, Metallica played a concert at the venue on October 20, 2018 that set an attendance record with a crowd of 15,588 people.
Team Summary
The Penny State Nittany Lions basketball team is an NCAA Division I college basketball program. The program represents Pennsylvania State University and play as a member of the Big Ten Conference. Their home games are played out of the 15,261 seat Bryce Jordan Center, which was built to replace Rec Hall. One of the defining features of the Bryce Jordan Center is the “Legion of Blue” which is a special student cheering section that honors and welcomes active students to cheer on their home team.
To date, the program has made nine NCAA tournament appearances. Of these appearances, their best was in 1954 when the team reached the Final Four and fell just short of making it to the final game of the tournament that year. Their most recent appearance came in 2011 when the team made it to the tournament but lost to the Temple Owls in the round of 64. Besides this, the program has also been invited to 11 appearances in the National Invitation Tournament, with their most recent invitation coming in 2018 when they beat Utah to win the NIT championship. They also previously won the NIT championship in 2009.
Achievements
The Penn State Nittany Lions have had many strong seasons under their belt. Ranging from tournament appearances to conference tournament championships, the players in the Blue and White are no strangers to success.
But with the team’s long history it’s almost impossible to explain their highlight moments in brief. So instead, here is a short list of the team’s strongest seasons and achievements.
- NCAA Tournament Final Four
1954
- NCAA Tournament Elite Eight
1942, 1954
- NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen
1952, 1954, 1955, 2001
- NCAA Tournament Appearances
1942, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1965, 1991, 1996, 2001, 2011
- Conference tournament champions
Atlantic 10: 1991
- Conference division season champions
Eastern Collegiate League West: 1977