Sure, with the caveat that I’m an amateur.
Saw the question in another thread about athleticism. Penn State’s pretty athletic. Ken Pomeroy recently listed the top dunking teams in The Athletic ($$$), and Penn State was No. 5 (he bumped Penn State from his ultimate top-5 list, though, in favor of Villanova after he adjusted for defenses faced).
A big part of the athleticism is Mike Watkins, however, and he won’t play tonight.
Starting 5:
John Harrar – A little-used freshman, at least until Watkins went down. 6-8ish. Had been committed to Army to play football when he was recruited by Penn State last spring as a basketball player. Decent hands, not explosive, fundamentally sound (but with very little playing experience).
Lamar Stevens – Sophomore, good leaper, excellent mid-range shooter, can make threes but not in bunches and hasn’t attempted many in the NIT. Listed at 6-8, 6-7 might be closer. Good rebounder, very good all-around player, decent handle for a big, one of Penn State’s key cogs. Honorable Mention All Big Ten. Pretty low-key personality, when feeling confident can be nearly unstoppable. Can be a matchup problem or have matchup problems, depending on the size and quickness of the opponent. Pretty good shot blocker.
Josh Reaves – Junior. Tremendous defender, All Big 10 defensive team. Good hops, can make three pointers. Long. Quick. No. 11 in the country in steal rate. Does all the little things better than anyone on the team.
Shep Garner – Senior. Great shooter. Came to Penn State as a point guard and slid over when Carr arrived. Probably took last season to get completely comfortable in that role. Penn State has moved the ball better as the season progressed, and Shep has taken full advantage, getting more open looks and, with space, getting to the basket more often.
Tony Carr – Sophomore. All Big 10 first team. 20 points per game. Really good three-point shooter (although NIT numbers have been low), range to a pretty good distance (like Shep – the NBA line would be fine, FIBA not a concern). Great post-up game and will ISO all night long against smaller defenders (which is a lot of the time – Tony’s 6-5). Has had some problems finishing at the rim, but will try to get there. Has made his teammates earn his trust, but as that has happened (latter half of the season), he’s distributing more and shooting less. Right now a pretty solid second-round projection for NBA, could sneak into the first. A lot of hope that he doesn’t hire an agent tomorrow and tests himself without one, but he will be gone (as he should) if he tests well in the coming months.
Bench:
Depth is a problem – there is some drop-off when going to the bench, mostly offensively.
Sixth man – Nazeer Bostick – Sophomore. 6-4 tweener, teammate of Stevens and Carr in high school. Injured and missed most of his freshman season. A good natural scorer, but still trying to find his spots at this level. Very confident, can be coaxed into taking open threes. And he might get to the point where he makes them, but his percentage this year has been low. Also long, very good leaper, seen mostly as a defense guy now but logs a lot of minutes.
Julian Moore – Grad/Sr, 6-10, pretty good off the bench (He’s actually playing slightly more minutes than Harrar) but can be overpowered by a strong big guy. Works hard, has made some really big plays down the stretch without Watkins.
Jamari Wheeler – Freshman. The best on-ball defender on the team. If he played more, he’d be third ranked in steal rate in the country.
Overall, the team under-performed its metrics. The running joke/not joke is that Penn State could be the highest KenPom team to ever be left out of the tournament. (Might have that sewn up). Ranked 23 in KenPom this morning, similar to some others: BPI 22, T-Rank 19, Sagarin 32, Current RPI 48.
Offensive efficiency is #48 nationally, defense #18, so pretty good balance. Penn State has run more sets as the season has progressed, but mostly runs that high ball screen, dribble-drive concept stuff that most teams seem to. The defense keys a lot of the offense, with blocks and steals triggering that rather than crazy on-ball defense, although that is pretty good.
Season had some ups and downs. A terrible non-conference schedule strength didn’t help, but lost two league games early to a playing-poorly Wisconsin team (by 1) and to a playing-OK-but-about-to-crater Minnesota team (in OT), and those probably made the difference. Then lost Reaves to academic problems for four games, and they went 1-3 against middling Big Ten teams during that stretch. I think the consensus (amongst Nitters, anyway!) is that the team easily had NCAA talent but did not accomplish what it needed to to get in.
Penn State has given about everyone a struggle this season. Biggest loss was 12 points at Nebraska in the game after Watkins went down. Only two other double-figure losses, to Texas A&M (in Brooklyn) and home to Minnesota (in overtime).
For a one month stretch after Josh Reaves’ return and before Watkins’ injury, Penn State trailed only Cincinnati in T-rank’s efficiency ranking. Since Watkins went down, that rank has dropped to 23.
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