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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 28, ISSUE 2 65 Penn State: No one will expect Penn State to contend. But the Nittany Lions should be expected to improve. Last year's surprisingly outstanding recruiting class took its lumps as freshmen last year, but should progress. Carr has All-Big Ten potential if his team can win enough games to earn him that sort of attention. The towering point guard averaged better than 13 points per game as a rookie last season, leading the Nittany Lions in scoring. Close behind was classmate Lamar Stevens, who averaged 12.7 points and stands to improve on that this year. Penn State was brutally inefficient last season, though, with three of its top four scorers shooting below 40 percent — Ste- vens shot a mediocre 42.9 percent — so that may be where it needs its second-year players' improvement to lie more than anywhere else. Young big man Mike Watkins is limited offensively but aver- aged eight boards per game as a redshirt freshman and should give the Lions one of the more impactful paint presences in the conference. ROUNDING THINGS OUT These teams are also members of the Big Ten. Nebraska: This year's hot seat watch in the Big Ten might focus largely on Tim Miles, who lost important players from last season's team both to graduation and trans- fer. The Cornhuskers need — need — George- town transfer Isaac Copeland to pan out. The 6-9, 220-pound forward was one of the top re- cruits in the 2014 class. And Nebraska's best veteran is point guard Glynn Watson, who might be able to work his way onto All-Big Ten radar if the Cornhuskers can win some games. But the optics around Nebraska lately haven't been great, as Miles has been stung by transfers. This year, it was forward Michael Jacobson heading to Iowa State and fellow frontcourt presence Ed Morrow Jr. departing his parents' alma mater for Marquette. Had those players remained, Miles might have had his most talented team at Nebraska. Rutgers: The Scarlet Knights are improving under Steve Pikiell, but improvement is relative. Rutgers was 15-18 last season and won some games against the league's other worst teams, but did end the season on a high note with Big Ten Tournament wins over Illinois and Ohio State, both of which would go on to fire their coaches. Rutgers has shown under Pikiell that it will play defense and play hard. Its problem is that it simply can't score. It scored 70 or more points just once in Big Ten play last sea- son and shot 41.1 percent for the year. Unless that changes in a big way, it'll be another long season in Piscataway. j S A V E T H E D A T E Proceeds benefit the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research