The BIG Hole in Penn State Basketball’s Roster That Must be Fixed
By Evan Smith
Penn State Basketball’s roster has one BIG hole for the 2022-2023 season, and it needs to be addressed immediately.
Head Coach Micah Shrewsberry was active early in the transfer portal, making up for the loss of Sam Sessoms (to Coppin State) by adding incoming fifth-year transfers of Andrew Funk (from Bucknell) and Cam Wynter (from Drexel). And with the second highest recruiting class (despite the school’s continual insistence of stating it’s the best) in school history coming in, things should be looking up, right?
Not so fast…unfortunately, there is a BIG hole in the Nittany Lion’s current roster. With the graduation of John Harrar, Greg Lee, and Jalanni White, the Penn State frontcourt is VERY lean.
Returning starter Seth Lundy and spot starter Myles Dread both return but neither are capable of covering a B1G power forward or center. Former coaches Pat Chambers and Jim Ferry and current coach Shrewsberry played Myles Dread at the power forward position, but he’s listed at just 6’4″ and 235 pounds. Lundy, while slightly taller at 6’6″, only weighs 217 pounds.
That leaves just ONE player on the roster who has any collegiate experience to play in the frontcourt, Jevonnie Scott. Scott had a poor year last year, missing time to do eligibility and then injury, much of which is still not well explained by the administration and rumors abound that he won’t be returning to the team next year.
That would open up one more additional scholarship and Shrewsberry has been active in the portal (Ryan Young, who went to Duke, Nic Lynch, who went to San Diego and last night Davion Bradford, who went to Wake Forest) but the focus on adding two guards has left open a BIG hole on this roster.
Even if Scott does leave the team and Penn State can add another big man in the portal, Penn State will still be forced to rely heavily on incoming freshman Kebba Njie and Demetrius Lilley. While both have enormous potential, most frontcourt players take quite a bit of time to transfer to the next level, with many playing against players bigger and stronger than them for the first time. For context, Njie, a four-star and top 100 recruit weighs just 205 pounds.
Both Funk and Wynter will be nice additions to the team, but the roster as constructed was already backcourt heavy. With returning starters Jalen Pickett and Dallion Johnson and incoming recruits Jameel Brown and Kanye Clary, the backcourt is already pretty full.
It’s likely at 6’5″ Funk can play at the small forward position (backing up Lundy) but that still leaves five guards for just two positions (point and shooting guard). Last year, Pickett played 37.2 minutes per game, which leaves little time to develop Brown/Clary and allow Wynter a chance to impact the game.
The frontcourt as constructed is far too reliant on incoming freshmen. Simply, Coach Shrewsberry would have been much better off using one of those scholarships on a frontcourt player to likely start and hopefully mentor both Njie and Lilley. The void that John Harrar leaves is truly B1G and to not have a plan to fill that hole in mid-May shows a bit of a lack of foresight as we turn the page to the 2022-2023 season.