College football’s best teams stay on top by replacing NFL talent with more NFL talent, by ensuring that the Next Man Up is as good as the Last Man Who Left.

Like so many teams looking to make the next step to that elite level, Penn State is working to develop that sort of dynamic at as many positions as possible, though it might already have it in a relatively surprising part of the field.

After years of fielding solid, if unspectacular, defensive backfields, often playing behind front sevens stacked with guys who would go on to play for paychecks on Sundays, the Nittany Lions have quietly built a secondary that can stand up to any in the nation and are showing no signs that it’s not sustainable.

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If life is like a box of chocolates (you never know what you’re gonna get), then pro days are like a box of donuts (you pretty much know exactly what you’re going to get, but certain varieties are more popular than others).

The range of players working out in Holuba Hall for pro scouts each year extends from guys who will be on the stage at the NFL Draft to those who haven’t played in a few seasons but are there to take one last swing at a professional future. It is the players in the middle who are often the most compelling, the chocolate glazed who won’t get picked until the cream-filled and jelly donuts are gone but just might be a good fit for the right squad.

Players like … Sean Clifford.

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The second-hardest thing to do in basketball is to complete a huge, momentum-shifting run to erase a big deficit and take a lead late in a game against a team that is by all rights better than you.

The hardest thing to do is hold onto that lead.

Penn State pulled off the first feat Saturday in Des Moines, using a 10-0 spurt to finally push ahead of a tough Texas team it had trailed for most of the evening, then went into a stall as the second-seeded Longhorns re-established command and ended the Nittany Lions’ memorable run with a 71-66 win in the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 32.

After a cold offensive first half, the Nittany Lions began to see some shots fall in the second, but still trailed 55-48 with just over seven minutes to play when Myles Dread sunk a 3-pointer and was fouled. He missed the free throw but nailed another three less than a minute later to make it a one-point game. Cam Wynter gave Penn State its first lead of the half with a pair of free throws at the 5:12 mark, and Seth Lundy converted a turnover into a fast-break layup that made it 58-55 Penn State with 4:50 to play.

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Two Penn State football developments this past week indicated two levels of risk. Both hinted very strongly that James Franklin feels pretty good about where his program is.

The announcement of former defensive end and defensive assistant Deion Barnes as the team’s new defensive line coach was a popular one among much of the fan base and, as a short video released by the team showed, even more popular with the players. And it’s not hard to see why. Barnes possesses just about every quality you would like to see in a young coach: He’s played the game at a high level, earning Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors in 2012, has a knack for teaching it, has recruiting ties in a relatively key region, and has the sort of grinder mentality one needs to survive the ultracompetitive world of college football.

He’s missing one quality, though: This is his first big-boy coaching job.

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Part of what made Penn State’s run to the championship final of the Big Ten Tournament remarkable was the knowledge that the Nittany Lions hadn’t even played their best basketball in wins over Illinois, Northwestern and Indiana (and very nearly Purdue). They were very much gritty, and not pretty, and though there was something meaningful in that, those who had closely watched Penn State the entire season knew the Lions had more to give.

They showed that and then some in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

Penn State utterly dominated a very good SEC team Thursday in both halves of a 76-59 win in Des Moines to pick up its first win in college basketball’s big tournament in more than 8,000 days. If that sounds like a long time, it probably was only slightly longer than what the 40 minutes must have felt like to the Aggies, who were little more than bystanders as Andrew Funk rained threes, Jalen Pickett, um, picked their defense apart, and the rest of the Nittany Lions filled their various roles expertly.

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Introduction

Like many of you, I have been a huge Penn State basketball fan for my entire life the entire month of March.

A deep, somewhat unexpected run in the Big Ten Tournament that saw wins over Illinois, Northwestern, and Indiana (and an almost-win vs. Purdue in the title gam), propelled the Nittany Lions to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2011. In fact, this is only the third time this century that Penn State received an invitation to college basketball’s Big Dance.

This 2022-23 transfer-heavy version of Penn State hoops plays a very fun brand of ball – from its  deep 3’s and air traffic controller-like stress, no matter if Micah Shrewsberry’s crew is winning or losing. It’s been a heckuva magic carpet ride thus far…and it’s not over.

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