Penn State hoops playing in Orlando for Thanksgiving tourney

Penn State’s conference opponents were released a few weeks ago. It’s now known what opponents the Nittany Lions will be playing in the 2023-24 season. The exact dates of each game will be released at a later date, but the schedule for the upcoming season is starting to come together.

Another piece of the puzzle was announced on Thursday. Penn State will be heading down to Florida during the Thanksgiving holiday to compete in the ESPN Events Invitational. This tournament will be composed of eight teams playing at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando. The first games will be tipped on November 23rd

Besides Penn State, the other schools invited to the tournament are Boise State, Butler, Florida Atlantic, Iowa State, Texas A&M, VCU and Virginia Tech.

This is a really strong field. Every team made the NCAA Tournament last year except for Butler and Virginia Tech. Florida Atlantic is coming off their Final Four run.

The two teams that really stand out for potential matchups are VCU and Texas A&M. The VCU matchup would be an early re-introduction between new head coach Mike Rhoades and former VCU players Ace Baldwin and Nick Kern who will be wearing Penn State jerseys this season. Texas A&M is a rematch from last year’s NCAA Tournament game that saw the Nittany Lions cruise to victory 76-59.

At this point in time, there are really no expectations for the team. Honestly, coach Rhoades might not even know what he truly has until a few weeks before the early season games. With all the transfers coming in and the returning players having never played with them before, meshing as a unit might take a while.

The ESPN Events Invitational should provide a look at to where the program is for the upcoming season. If they compete with these high caliber teams, that’s a very good sign for the conference play portion of the schedule.

There will be games before this tournament, but those haven’t been announced yet. Those games will most likely be against lesser opponents since they played Winthrop during a down year and Loyola Maryland.

The Thanksgiving stretch should give everyone an idea about how this team will play during the 2023-24 season.