REPORT: Penn State Basketball to Play in 2023 ESPN Invitational

It appears that Penn State’s regular season tournament experience for 2023 is set, as CBS Sports college basketball reporter Jon Rothstein tweeted that the Nittany Lions will be part of the eight-team field at next year’s ESPN Invitational down in Orlando, Florida at the Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex.

As you can see from the above tweet, we are still awaiting who the eighth team invited will be, although it will come from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC). As you also might have noticed, there is a possibility for PSU to exact revenge against Virginia Tech, who beat them in a close one in this year’s Charleston Classic. All in all, it’s an intriguing field with solid teams representing mostly power and higher mid-major conferences.

The tournament features both a winner’s and loser’s bracket, so each team is guaranteed to play three games while down in the House of the Mouse. The first games will take place on Thanksgiving Day, while the second games will happen on Black Friday, and the final games that Sunday.

Penn State actually participated in this tournament once back in 2007, with the Nittany Lions falling to South Carolina, Rider, and UCF en route to a last place finish. That team featured a then-unknown freshman named Talor Battle, who would go on to become the program’s all-time leading scorer.