Not JHoops, but I’m a former college basketball player and current High School Basketball Coach in Cincinnati and just wanted to give my perspective on the basketball team.
First and foremost this team doesn’t have a BIG Ten Roster yet. The Freshman class is great. You can see the potential with Carr, Stevens, Bostick, and Watkins. Even though Watkins is a redshirt these four guys have to get a lot stronger, the only guy on the entire roster who actually looks like a BIG Ten player is Stevens and maybe Banks. I’m not sure if Chambers would even consider cutting ties with certain guys or trying to push transfers but Washington, Zemgulis, and Julian Moore are what I would consider MAC Players (Mid-American Conference). They do not have the skill or size to play in the BIG Ten.
If you are watching the Pitt game right now, you can clearly see the size difference between a strong Pitt Team vs. a young Penn State skinny squad. I think Chambers is a good coach and should be given at least 2-3 more years to start getting more talented players. The team is really lacking shooters and guys that can aggressively take it to the basket. Shep is our best shooter but is undersized and seems to really be pressing without the ball constantly in his hands and seems to be forcing shots.
This year is going to be a big learning curve especially with how young of a team we have. Things these young guys could do in high school or on the AAU circuit you can’t do or get away with in college. There is such a big difference in the speed of the game and physicality. There also is a huge difference between a 17-18 year old freshman and a 22-23 year old senior. Yes we had a great recruiting class but it’s going to take time to figure it out and play well together.
Things I like: Love the core players of Reaves, Watkins, Carr, Stevens, Samuel, Shep and Bostick seems like a nice athlete. I also love how we play a token 1-2-2 full court to slow teams down from getting right into offense. The guys seem to play hard but not always smart.
Things I don’t like or areas we need to improve upon greatly: For this team to be successful the margin of error is so small. Young teams have to be able to take care of the ball, take great shots and play great defense. Those 3 things we are not doing at all. Offensively our shot selection is terrible, we shoot far too many threes for a team that doesn’t have great shooters. We need to work the ball inside to Watkins and have a more inside out approach. We are far too careless with the basketball and instead of making an easy pass and valuing the ball we throw too many 1 hand passes, and long passes that get tipped, deflected or just intercepted. Then defensively we have terrible gap help, which is just help side, we don’t rotate well and we really struggle to rebound. We are playing a lot of zone, which I don’t love but we give up far too many straight line drives to the basket and don’t box out at all. We need to hit and move guys out, young guys just turn and try to use their athleticism and we are getting killed on the glass.
I think there is a lot to look forward to, but if you think this team is a tournament team or a team that can challenge for the Big Ten Title, I just don’t see it. However, give Pat a few more years to turn this around and continue bringing in higher-level players and we have a chance to be a very solid program in the future.
Coach Brown
First and foremost this team doesn’t have a BIG Ten Roster yet. The Freshman class is great. You can see the potential with Carr, Stevens, Bostick, and Watkins. Even though Watkins is a redshirt these four guys have to get a lot stronger, the only guy on the entire roster who actually looks like a BIG Ten player is Stevens and maybe Banks. I’m not sure if Chambers would even consider cutting ties with certain guys or trying to push transfers but Washington, Zemgulis, and Julian Moore are what I would consider MAC Players (Mid-American Conference). They do not have the skill or size to play in the BIG Ten.
If you are watching the Pitt game right now, you can clearly see the size difference between a strong Pitt Team vs. a young Penn State skinny squad. I think Chambers is a good coach and should be given at least 2-3 more years to start getting more talented players. The team is really lacking shooters and guys that can aggressively take it to the basket. Shep is our best shooter but is undersized and seems to really be pressing without the ball constantly in his hands and seems to be forcing shots.
This year is going to be a big learning curve especially with how young of a team we have. Things these young guys could do in high school or on the AAU circuit you can’t do or get away with in college. There is such a big difference in the speed of the game and physicality. There also is a huge difference between a 17-18 year old freshman and a 22-23 year old senior. Yes we had a great recruiting class but it’s going to take time to figure it out and play well together.
Things I like: Love the core players of Reaves, Watkins, Carr, Stevens, Samuel, Shep and Bostick seems like a nice athlete. I also love how we play a token 1-2-2 full court to slow teams down from getting right into offense. The guys seem to play hard but not always smart.
Things I don’t like or areas we need to improve upon greatly: For this team to be successful the margin of error is so small. Young teams have to be able to take care of the ball, take great shots and play great defense. Those 3 things we are not doing at all. Offensively our shot selection is terrible, we shoot far too many threes for a team that doesn’t have great shooters. We need to work the ball inside to Watkins and have a more inside out approach. We are far too careless with the basketball and instead of making an easy pass and valuing the ball we throw too many 1 hand passes, and long passes that get tipped, deflected or just intercepted. Then defensively we have terrible gap help, which is just help side, we don’t rotate well and we really struggle to rebound. We are playing a lot of zone, which I don’t love but we give up far too many straight line drives to the basket and don’t box out at all. We need to hit and move guys out, young guys just turn and try to use their athleticism and we are getting killed on the glass.
I think there is a lot to look forward to, but if you think this team is a tournament team or a team that can challenge for the Big Ten Title, I just don’t see it. However, give Pat a few more years to turn this around and continue bringing in higher-level players and we have a chance to be a very solid program in the future.
Coach Brown
