UNCASVILLE, Conn. – Pat Chambers has a tough job ahead at Penn State. The first-year head coach has a team with a good deal of youth and in a tough place to recruit. The scandal engulfing the football program is irrelevant; this has always been one of the toughest high-major jobs out there. And as his team took home a victory over South Florida on Sunday in a game that was anything but pretty, it was a positive end to a weekend that gave some indication of his challenge.
The Nittany Lions were humbled 85-47 by Kentucky on Saturday. A game like that is usually indicative of the winning team playing very well and the losing team playing very poorly, two things that don’t come together often but isn’t the rarest combination of events, either. Since they started out 3-0, including a nice win over a good Long Island team that played later on Sunday, it was a big change in the bottom line for this team.
“Everything was very glaring – our youth, our mistakes, our inexperience, it all came out,” said Chambers of the blowout loss.
The question coming out of a game like that is how the team will respond right after it, and at first it wasn’t good on Sunday. The first half between Penn State and South Florida was bad basketball from an offensive standpoint as the teams combined for 34 points. They were better in the second half, shooting over 52 percent from the field, and Chambers mentioned the big basket by Billy Oliver late in the game that helped them seal it as they led by six at that point.
Tim Frazier has been carrying the Nittany Lions thus far. The junior guard had 27 points and six rebounds on Sunday, and he’s done it all for them as he’s not only their leading scorer but also the only player with double digit assists through five games and the only player making more than 43 percent of his field goal attempts. They certainly need others, such as Oliver, Jermaine Marshall (14 points on Sunday), Cameron Woodyard and Trey Lewis, to contribute.
“These guys have got to step up for (Frazier),” said Chambers. “These guys need to step up and make plays for Penn State. We can’t rely on Tim every game, or it’s going to be a long season for Penn State.”
Related to that, the Nittany Lions had just five assists on 17 made baskets on Sunday and have 55 through five games. Chambers cited the need to move the ball better so other players besides Frazier can get good shots and so that he doesn’t have to bail them out so often. Frazier is very good, but he’s not an all-world player. In some sense, this challenge is similar to last year at Boston University for him, when he had to get younger players to make themselves a factor instead of deferring to veteran players.
Chambers isn’t a bad man for the job. He’s charismatic and very personable and those characteristics can go a long way with recruits. He appreciates the chance he has with the game of basketball as much as anyone after he was stabbed and almost died nine years ago before he entered the world of college coaching. So Penn State did well with the hire from a lot of angles. But no matter who the coach is, this is a very difficult job because it’s proven to be difficult to recruit the talent there to win with on anything remotely resembling a consistent basis.
The Nittany Lions have just one senior and three juniors, so there’s a lot of inexperience and untapped potential on this team. There’s a lot Chambers can do with the current group at an impressionable point in their college careers even if some of them are not players he recruited.
The remainder of the non-conference schedule will be a little tougher than the first couple of weeks, save for the Kentucky game. Penn State has to go to Saint Joseph’s, Boston College (Big Ten/ACC Challenge) and Duquesne and host Mississippi. This team has more challenges ahead, and once Big Ten play starts they go on the road for the first two games (Michigan and Northwestern).
The early going has had some bright spots, but also had a humbling point on Saturday. If the Nittany Lions emerge well from it, Chambers will have them well on their way to ultimately succeeding, even if it doesn’t quite happen this season.
