Here’s who is staying and who is going from Penn State men’s basketball’s 2020-21 team
Penn State men’s basketball was set to experience heavy roster turnover heading into the 2021-22 season, with seven members of the team in the transfer portal — six of which entered after the program hired Micah Shrewsberry as head coach.
Instead, the roster will remain mostly intact now that all seven have made their decisions. Let’s take a look at those seven players and where they’re ending up, beginning with those who are staying.
Staying
Izaiah Brockington, John Harrar and Seth Lundy — three of the five most important players that were in the portal — will all remain with the Nittany Lions under Shrewsberry. Brockington was the first to announce his decision, then Lundy followed and Harrar rounded out the group Tuesday afternoon.
The trio of Nittany Lions will help bring stability to a team that nearly lost half its roster to the portal.
Brockington’s return will provide perimeter scoring to a team that will desperately need it after the departures and should once again see a major role next season as a junior. He played in 73.6% of the team’s minutes last year, according to KenPom, and finished the year as the team’s second-leading scorer with 12.6 points per game.
Harrar was the heart and soul of the 2020-21 team, but added just as much on the court as he did off it. The center averaged 8.8 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, dominating the glass on both ends of the court while providing stability at a position that was expected to be a major weakness for Penn State last season. His return will give more time for young big man Abdou Tsimbila to develop into the team’s next starting center, while Harrar completes his last year of eligibility.
Lundy was arguably the most important piece to enter the portal for Penn State because of his youth and skill level. He’ll be a sophomore — again, thanks to the NCAA’s ruling on last season not toward athletes’ eligibility clock — and has plenty of room to grow. Lundy can provide scoring and shooting from the wing while providing versatility as a defender thanks to his size and athleticism.
Going
While keeping Brockington, Lundy and Harrar should prove to be crucial for Penn State, the program still sustained multiple losses. The two biggest come in the form of Myreon Jones — to Florida — and Jamari Wheeler — to Ohio State. Those two represented the team’s starting backcourt last season.
Jones was the team’s leading scorer with 15.3 points per game and a prolific shooter from beyond the arc. He was the Nittany Lions’ go-to scorer and could change the shape of a game with his shooting from deep. There isn’t any singular player on the roster who can replicate what Jones did and that will make it much more difficult to replace him next season — when he would have had two years of eligibility remaining.
Wheeler, like Harrar, was a senior leader for Penn State last season. He provided stability from the perimeter as a high-level defender who could guard his man and disrupt passing lanes as well as any Big Ten guard. His newfound shooting stroke — he shot 35.7% on 3.4 attempts per game last season — helped space the floor for a team that lacked spacing at times. His decision to go to Ohio State is the most likely to haunt Penn State in the short term, since the two teams will clash in Wheeler’s final season of eligibility.
There were two more players who left the program in Patrick Kelly — for Fordham — and Trent Buttrick — for UMass. Kelly entered the portal following former head coach Pat Chambers’ resignation in October, while Buttrick was one of the six players to enter after Shrewsberry was hired.
Buttrick played in all 25 games, but only averaged 13.3 minutes per contest. He was Harrar’s primary backup and had his biggest performance on senior night, when he tied a career high and set a season high with 13 points against Minnesota in his final game at the Bryce Jordan Center.
Kelly only played in five games last season, averaging 2.2 minutes in those contests.
