The Penn State men’s basketball team will return to Philadelphia to face Michigan at the Palestra. It marks the second straight year and the fourth time since the 2016-17 season that the Nittany Lions will play a Big Ten game at the venerable arena.

The Nittany Lions and Wolverines will square off on Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024. The game time and television channel are to be announced. Tickets will go on sale at a later date.

The announcement of the Penn State-Michigan matchup comes as part of the Big Ten’s schedule release and Penn State’s full schedule announcement Tuesday afternoon.

This is the fourth Big Ten game that Penn State will play at the Palestra. The Nittany Lions beat Michigan State in 2017 and Iowa in 2020, and they lost to Purdue last January. The No. 1 Boilermakers overcame a slow start to defeat the Nittany Lions, 76-63.

Michigan coach Juwan Howard floated the possibility of playing Penn State at the Palestra on his radio show in February. Howard said the two sides were “working on … where we’re going to play that game.”

Read more: Penn State basketball set for 2023-24 season after schedule release

Howard also has a deep Philly connection on his staff. Michigan associate head coach Phil Martelli coached at St. Joseph’s from 1985-2019, and he was inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame recently. Martelli won 444 games and took the Hawks to the Elite Eight in 2004.

Martelli’s son, Jimmy, is an assistant coach under Mike Rhoades on the Penn State staff.

Penn State has played 61 games at the Palestra, dating back to 1927. The Nittany Lions are 24-37 in those games at the historic gymnasium, which holds just more than 8,700 fans.

The Palestra opened on the campus of Penn on Jan. 1, 1927. It’s commonly referred to as “The Cathedral of College Basketball.”

The return to Philadelphia allows Penn State to showcase itself in a fertile recruiting ground. The Nittany Lions roster has two Philly natives in guard Jameel Brown and forward Demetrius Lilley, while junior Zach Hicks, who began his career at Temple in North Philadelphia, is from across the Delaware River in Camden, N.J.

Daniel Gallen covers Penn State for Lions247 and 247Sports. He can be reached at daniel.gallen@paramount.com. Follow Daniel on Twitter at @danieljtgallen.