Penn State Basketball: 5 BOLD predictions for the Nittany Lions’ season
By Evan Smith
Bold Prediction #2 — Jalen Pickett will shoot below 40% from the field
Jalen Pickett, by far the best transfer portal pick-up for Shrewsberry, has never had a year shooting under 40% from the field.
Pickett shot 43.6% as a freshman, peaked at 45.8% as a sophomore, and still a solid 40.3% last year.
However, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (more commonly referred to as the ‘fake MAC’ or the ‘MAAAAAAAAACC’) ain’t no Big Ten Conference.
Let’s look at another transfer portal player, Sam Sessoms.
Sessoms, coming from the America East Conference also as a ‘top 100 recruit’ saw significant drops in his shooting percentage from the field and especially from three-point range. He averaged around 33% at Binghamton but finished shooting 28% from beyond the arc at Penn State.
Like it or not, Pickett will always be compared to outgoing transfer Myreon Jones, especially since Pickett is essentially filling Jones’ role on the team.
Bold Prediction #3 — Caleb Dorsey will average 10 minutes a game
This team has virtually no front-court depth.
Thank goodness John Harrar returned for his extra year of COVID-eligibility because with Jevonnie Scott out with NCAA issues and transfer Greg Lee missing the first few weeks of the season with an injury, Harrar has NO help down low.
We had predicted Lee would start at the power forward with Scott and Jalanni White backing up both Lee and Harrar.
As great as Harrar is, centers in today’s game don’t play more than 30 minutes and even that is pushing it.
Listed at 6-foot-7, Caleb Dorsey could be the answer.
Dorsey was recruited as a small forward from Pottstown, PA, but is far more positioned to play a ‘big’ than Myles Dread and Seth Lundy, who have been forced into playing underneath the basket far more than they should have.
This isn’t the time to mention how great it would be to have Abdou Tsimbila (transferred to Fordham) to help. But, we predicted Caleb will play a similar role to Trent Buttrick (transferred to UMass) on last year’s team.
Despite only averaging 2.2 minutes per game last year, combined with the injuries and new coaching staff, Caleb Dorsey has a real chance to play meaningful minutes.