With a bounce-back 90-76 win on Saturday over Ohio State, Penn State men’s basketball ended a tough three-game losing streak that had dropped the team to a 2-4 conference record. This season in the Big Ten has been extremely unpredictable and competitive across the board, as Big Ten road teams have only managed to win seven times in 48 tries. Right now, 12 out of the Big Ten’s 14 teams rank among the top 50 in both the NCAA NET Rankings and the KenPom ratings.

All of the competition means that while Penn State was ranked for a few weeks at an earlier point in the season, the team must continue to improve down the stretch if it wants to break through and earn the program’s first berth to the Big Dance in the Pat Chambers era.

One of the major points of focus for Chambers during the team’s week-long break between tonight’s game at Michigan and next Wednesday’s home meeting against Indiana? Crashing the boards harder on both ends of the floor.

The team currently ranks 10th and 13th in the Big Ten in offensive and defensive rebounding percentage, respectively. Minnesota’s Daniel Oturu tallied 14 boards last Wednesday, Wisconsin’s Brad Davison and Micah Potter combined for 26 rebounds, and Rutgers out-rebounded Penn State by eight in the first game of the losing streak.

“I really want to take advantage of the time between Michigan and Indiana,” Chambers said at his press conference on Monday. “Our weaknesses right now — rebounding — obviously that’s never going to go away in the Big Ten. We’ve got to continue to find bodies because the Big Ten is amazing at that.”

Another issue Chambers spoke about was the excess fouling on defense, noting how the Nittany Lions could’ve earned a much better result at Minnesota if they hadn’t allowed the Gophers to make 23 of their 29 free throw attempts.

“We have to start limiting fouling,” Chambers continued. “Some how some way we have to stop reaching. We’ve got to wall up and play with our hands a bit higher. Right now, we’re allowing opponents more than 20 free throws per game.”

On the flip side of the fouls issue, Penn State does lead the conference in blocked shots (6.1 per game) and steals (8.6 per game), so the risk of playing aggressively does end in reward on many possessions for the Nittany Lions.

Fortunately for Penn State, Michigan ranks in the bottom half in the conference in rebounding and free throw shooting, so tonight’s game in Ann Arbor presents a great opportunity for Chambers and company to tally their first Big Ten road win of the season, add a quad-one victory to their tournament resume, and move back to 4-4 in conference play. The game tips off at 7 p.m., and you can watch the game on BTN.