Penn State Basketball

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Penn State basketball's rise under head coach Pat Chambers seems likely to continue after adding star forward Lamar Stevens to its 2016 recruiting class. 

Alex Kline of the Recruit Scoop reported Stevens' commitment to the Nittany Lions.

Per 247Sports' composite rankings, Stevens is a 4-star small forward and the 88th-ranked player overall in next year's class. He's listed at 6'6" and 190 pounds, giving Penn State additional length in the backcourt. 

After landing Stevens, Chambers is beginning to make Penn State a basketball program where top talent wants to play, per Evan Daniels of Scout.com:

How about this: With the addition of Lamar Stevens, Penn State has a top 10 recruiting class ... In basketball.

— Evan Daniels (@EvanDaniels) September 18, 2015

Ben Jones of StateCollege.com noted that PSU's recruiting class is now ranked eighth overall and second in the Big Ten at 247Sports:

Penn State basketball's 2016 recruiting class is now ranked No. 8 in the nation and No. 2 in the Big Ten per the 247 Composite.

— Ben Jones (@Ben_Jones88) September 18, 2015

Chambers is doing a terrific job of recruiting at Penn State. He took over the program in 2011, the year after it lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament, and has slowly made his mark. The Nittany Lions have increased their win total each of the past two years, going from 10 wins in 2012-13 to 18 last season. 

Stevens joins star point guard Tony Carr as 2016 recruits who are bringing optimism back to Happy Valley. The talent still has to develop for the Nittany Lions to become a perennial tournament team, but they are moving in the right direction. 

Penn State and head basketball coach Pat Chambers drew the ire of the Big Ten following comments from Chambers about the officials during a game against Maryland on Valentine's Day.     

According to Kami Mattioli of the Sporting News, citing a press release from the Big Ten, Chambers was reprimanded by the conference and the school was fined:

After his lengthy rant about the quality of officiating in the Penn State - Maryland game on Feb. 14, Penn State head coach Pat Chambers received a public reprimand from the Big Ten on Tuesday morning.

The league also fined Penn State $10,000 for 'violating the Big Ten's Sportsmanship Policy,' it said in a release.

Following a 76-73 loss, in which a controversial offensive foul was called on Nittany Lions center Jordan Dickerson with less than two minutes to play, Chambers ripped the officials, via Ben Jones of StateCollege.com:

Pat Chambers' full quote on the Jordan Dickerson offensive foul call/officiating in general. pic.twitter.com/l24PL5bFW2

— Ben Jones (@Ben_Jones88) February 15, 2015

Chambers' frustration is certainly legitimate based on the play, in which Dickerson was basically pulled down by a Maryland player, but it could also be coming out of frustration with the way his team has played.

The Nittany Lions are only ahead of Northwestern and Rutgers in the Big Ten and have lost four of their last five games to fall to 15-11 overall, likely ending any hopes Chambers had of making the NCAA tournament. They've lost their share of close conference games, going 1-8 in games decided by 10 points or less. 

Chambers will take his public shaming, while the school will be forced to pay the fine, but it's not going to change the irritation he likely feels based on where his team is at with five regular-season games left to play. 

Tonight's Big Ten matchup between Michigan and Penn State may look like a serious mismatch on paper, but the Nittany Lions could be looking at a season-making first league win against the fourth-ranked Wolverines.

These two teams come into the matchup with a lot on the line. 

Indiana suffering their third league loss last night bolstered Michigan's slim hopes at a Big Ten title, but the Wolverines will need to win out to keep that hope alive.

On the other hand, with a big game against Michigan State next on the schedule and Indiana looming down the road, the minds of Wolverine players may be elsewhere tonight.

Penn State is just looking for a marquee win to alleviate some of the sting of an 0-14 conference record. Wins don't get much bigger than beating the No. 4 team in the country on your home court on Senior Night.

You can bet the Nittany Lions will be amped up for tonight's contest.

This matchup screams trap game for Michigan, especially given how well the Nittany Lions played the last time these two teams met.

Michigan and Penn State met just ten days ago in Ann Arbor, and the Nittany Lions hung tough for most of the game before the Wolverines pulled away in the second half.

Penn State led that game by as many as eight points several times in the first half, and Michigan needed a circus shot by Trey Burke to tie the game. That shot swung momentum in Michigan's favor going into the second half.

Michigan pulled the game out 79-71, but Penn State showed some gritty play and proved they can hang with the Wolverines.

That was just one in a recent string of tough losses for the Nittany Lions. They've lost their last three games by an average of just five points, and it's only a matter of time before they get over the hump for that first win.

If they want to pull off the upset, they will need a boost from an offense that has been relatively anemic at times this season.

That starts with D.J. Newbill and Jermaine Marshall, the only Nittany Lions to average over seven points per game.

Look for Sasa Borovnjak to take some of the pressure off those two to score since he's put up double-digit points in his past three games. He had a career high 17 points in two of those performances—including at Michigan.

Expect the streak of strong play to continue for the senior as he plays in front of his home crowd on Senior Night.

The Nittany Lions have been building towards a big win for a few games now, and last week they showed they can hang with the fourth-ranked Wolverines. If Michigan sits back even a little during this game, it could be just what Penn State needs to steal a huge upset win in University Park.

The year 1996 was an important year for Penn State basketball.

For the first time since 1929, the team would call "home" an arena other than the Recreation Building, more commonly known as Rec Hall. The team moved to the newly opened Bryce Jordan Center (BJC), which sits right next to Beaver Stadium and Lubrano Park.

While the stadium is awesome for concerts, graduations and the always important THON, it has not been a very good home for the Nittany Lions basketball team.

Penn State came into this season with a 48-32 record at home, including a 21-24 showing against conference opponents.

Part of the overall record is due to playing bad teams, but the conference record can be attributed to playing quality opponents like Ohio State, Michigan State and Wisconsin every year.

However, the easiest part to fix about Penn State basketball is the arena itself.

The BJC has a capacity of 15,261 for basketball games. Its largest capacity crowd came in 2000, when 15,420 packed into the BJC to see the Nittany Lions take on Indiana.

Last year, against Ohio State on Senior Night, 15,403 came to see PSU take on the No. 1 team in the country.

As a PSU student who attends multiple games a year, seeing those numbers is shocking to me.

This season, the Nittany Lions are averaging 5,233 people per game, with the highest turnout being 7,202 against Mount St. Mary’s.

Their biggest non-conference game so far was against Ole Miss. A scant 6,001 fans were in attendance.

Playing in the area’s worst college basketball venue, according to Penn Live, does not help the Lions.

If I may, I would like to offer a simple and sensible solution to save some money and give the team a consistent home court advantage: move the basketball team back to its real home, Rec Hall.

Fiscally, this would be a brilliant move for the basketball team and for the school.

Did you know, even though the university owns the arena, they must pay rent for the basketball team to have their games there?

Read that again. To use their own arena, they need to pay rent.

How does that make any sense financially when they have a free building that is right on campus?

Moving their games to Rec Hall would save the school money in a program that doesn’t bring much cash in anyway.

In a basketball sense, a move like this is a necessity. If you’ve ever been to a sporting event at Rec Hall, you’d know it’s absolute mayhem. If you haven’t, go to a women’s volleyball match. Other than football games, they may be the most intense sporting events the school has to offer.

The capacity for volleyball matches is 6,469. The basketball team has averaged 5,233 fans a game in 2011-12. Add in the pep band, and playing in Rec Hall suddenly gives PSU some semblance of a home-court advantage.

Is this a perfect solution?

Absolutely not.

Rec Hall’s largest crowd for a basketball game was 8,200 back in 1973. The largest crowd Penn State had last year was 15,403. However, the one or two near-capacity crowds a years shouldn’t prevent PSU’s athletic department from making a decision that would actually benefit the basketball team.

In my opinion, that decision should be to give the team a consistent home-court advantage by moving basketball games to Rec Hall.

The last thing that Tim Curley expected last week when Ed DeChellis walked into his office was that the basketball coach had his letter of resignation in hand. DeChellis had just taken his Nittany Lions to the NCAA tournament for the first time in a decade ,but that event didn't have teams racing to State College to sign America's next hot coaching talent out from under him.

Curley and most of the athletic department in Happy Valley were stunned that an alum would walk out the door and take a pay cut to go to a lesser program after eight years on the job and three years left on his contract.

But through the tears at his press conference later that afternoon, it was clear that Ed DeChellis knew exactly what he was doing. 

Sure, he was leaving Happy Valley and some great friendships. At the bottom of it all you'd want Ed DeChellis as a friend.  He is as decent a man as you will ever meet. The tears spoke to leave that part of himself behind in a place where he left Beaver County and first became a man.

But DeChellis had also seen the future in Happy Valley and it wasn't what he wanted or needed. 

A wobbly program with another major rebuilding effort on the horizon, more competition for money, support and recognition from the fledgling hockey program setting up shop across the street, three years left on a contract that he likely would not coach to the end of, all of those hours on the road recruiting kids who could play but didn't fit the Penn State mold and the stress of more losing must have seemed less than appealing.

He also saw the future at Navy: a 50-percent cut in pay but a chance to coach for almost as long as he wanted, a school full of athletes who don't want to be anywhere else in the world, loyal alumni, lower expectations on the court (but not where it counts), a nice place to live and a chance to make a difference in the lives of young men who are going to make a difference in the world.

When you survive cancer as DeChellis did several years ago, you learn that there are more important things in life than wins on a basketball court. The competitor in you still wants to win, but there is a realization that life is about more than that. As much as anything else, the chance to do something grand and still win a couple of games along the way made the decision for the 52-year-old coach.

DeChellis will do just fine in Annapolis. He was a good small-time coach before he arrived at Penn State and should be able to turn the ship rather quickly in a place without Big Ten expectations.

On the other hand, without a coach, Penn State faces a far more uncertain future. It's no great state secret that the basketball program is the poor red-headed stepchild of Happy Valley.  Students refer to it as something to do between football seasons and they are right.  

But now with the volleyball program winning titles left and right, the wrestling team following the same course and a well-funded high visibility hockey program about to launch, the hoops team is falling behind further and faster than ever before. 

Which path to take? The present one, where the kids all graduate, the team wins occasionally and the team just about breaks even financially? Or the one never traveled, where Penn State spends the money for a high-profile or at least highly-recognized coach who recruits kids who don't really fit the Penn State tradition. Kids who aren't academic All-American but can light up a scoreboard. Kids who win but don't stay long. Kids that always before told Penn State "no."

Which will it be: the next Ed DeChellis or Butler's Brad Stevens?

Penn State has been at this crossroads before; in fact, three times since 1990. Each time Penn made the comfortable choice and the program sunk back to its previous low-water mark. Is this the time to damn the torpedoes and sail into uncharted waters?       

Ed Dechellis has stepped down as the Penn State Nittany Lions men’s basketball coach for the same position at Navy.

The move is shocking to many Penn State basketball faithful, as the program just came off its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2001.

The Pennsylvania State University is approximately three hours from Philadelphia. The Nittany Lions have to recruit in the area to build a contending Big Ten team.

If Penn State wants to become a legitimate Big Ten contender every season, the program needs to lure a big-time coach in order to land some good Philly basketball talent.

Which brings up the case of Fran Dunphy as the next head coach of the Nittany Lions.

Dunphy is known for building and rebuilding college basketball programs in the Philadelphia area. At Penn, Dunphy complied a 310-163 record, with 10 Ivy League titles in his 17-year tenure. Fran coached the 1994 Quakers into the second round of the NCAA Tournament, after an upset of sixth-seeded Nebraska.

When Dunphy was at Penn, the program was expected to win the Ivy League and make the NCAA tournament every season.

Dunphy currently is the head coach at Temple, succeeding Big 5 legend John Chaney in 2006. He rebuilt the Owls into an Atlantic 10 power and NCAA tournament regular once again. The Owls are 110-57 under Dunphy’s reign, with four consecutive NCAA tournament appearances and three Atlantic 10 tournament championships.

Fran Dunphy is the coach Penn State needs.

The Nittany Lions have the money and resources to rebuild a program in two to three years under Dunphy. Fran will not be able to recruit players at Villanova’s level, but can sway away some of the second-tier players that choose Temple, St. Joe’s or LaSalle.

Dunphy makes his players better from year one to year four and gets the best out of his team. Fran is an excellent defensive coach, which will fit well with Big Ten basketball.

Unfortunately for Penn State basketball, the program will need to offer Dunphy a lot of money and benefits to lure him out of Temple.

The Owls will be a top-25 team next season and are a virtual lock for the NCAA tournament. Dunphy has top players Juan Fernandez, Micheal Eric and Ramone Moore returning and another strong recruiting class heading to Broad Street.

Temple is an Atlantic 10 powerhouse and is slowly creeping up to Villanova’s level in terms of success. A deep NCAA Tournament run (possibly next year) would transform the Owls into a national power once again.

Fran has coached and lived almost his whole life in Philly, so why would he want to head to the middle of nowhere to rebuild a basketball team he just defeated in this past year’s tournament?

Penn State should at least try to persuade him away from Broad Street in hopes of trying to build a basketball power. Dunphy has done it everywhere else he's coached, so why not take his talents to Happy Valley?

To read more of Jeff Kerr's work, click www.morningafterphilly.com or follow him on Twitter at  http://twitter.com/#!/jeff_kerr