Penn State Basketball: Chambers Era Still Has To Be Viewed With Longterm In Mind

Pat Chambers had more hair when he first got to Penn State nearly four long seasons ago. 

In his defense though, that’s really the only visible change since he took the job. He’s still as intense as ever -maybe a bit less than he once was- as enthusiastic and as determined.

He has survived three and a half seasons coaching Penn State basketball, something that undoubtledy grinds away at your soul, and is still standing tall. That’s an accomplishment in itself.

But for all of Chambers’ energy and excitement the Nittany Lions are still struggling to win.

The question is why. The question is how does that change.

And the answer isn’t simple.

Penn State has fallen in 7 games this season all in a different variety of ways. A quick recap of those setbacks:

• The first loss in double overtime to a good Charlotte team. 
• On the road against a Wisconsin roster that could beat just about anyone in the nation. 
• A four point loss to Rutgers in a game where neither team shot the ball well enough to resemble fluid basketball.
• Against Michigan where the Wolverines did everything just a little better and for just long enough to win. 
• By three on the road at Indiana against a team that obliterated Top 15 ranked Maryland. 
• In overtime, but essentially at the buzzer against Purdue.
• The seventh and most recent loss, a 6-point setback on the road at Michigan State.

Those results depend on how you look at them. Chambers has entered a Penn State football John Donovan/Herb Hand like situation. Either he is coaching up talent past its potential to get to this point or he isn’t capitalizing on the talent that he has.

Unfortunately -for those hoping for clarity- the answer is somewhere in between.

Penn State doesn’t have bad players. Compared to the nearly lifeless roster Chambers inherited a few years ago Penn State is overflowing with depth. It may not be top tier depth, but Chambers has options. That is something worth noting.

But at the same time those players haven’t capitalized on their looks. Brandon Taylor’s shooting slump in the early stages of Big Ten play wasn’t the result of a stale offense, it was the result of simply missing open shots. You can’t really coach through that, you just have to hope they play through it.

That kind of issue has percolated down the roster. Freshman Shep Garner shows glimpses of being a great player down the road but isn’t super productive currently. That’s to be expected and in many ways his shooting has been a positive even when it doesn’t fall.

Geno Thorpe’s foul issues keep him off the defensive side of the ball where he is most effective and off the floor where he is growing on offense.

Ross Travis has entered his senior season ready to assault the rebounding records at Penn State but has done little on the offensive end.

John Johnson is suspended but has proven to be a quality finisher at the rim and a streaky shooter from deep.

Donovon Jack shoots at a high clip but fouls at nearly every opportunity.

Jordan Dickerson shows glimpses of a viable 7-footer but aside from rim protection his offense is hardly good enough for more than a few baskets.

Little things that are a combination of coaching and the realization at some point you just have to execute.

And that leaves DJ Newbill, Penn State’s lone star who has through the grace of the basketball Gods managed to break through double teams and screens and blankets of defense and still make shots. It’s a thought not even worth entertaining to imagine where Penn State would be without him.

In many ways that brings us back to the Talor Battle era, a time where in its prime Battle would shoot from anywhere late in the shot clock and find himself making most of those baskets. It was video game basketball but when his teammates finally caught on he led them to the most wins in a single season in the history of the program and an NIT title. That success wasn’t a mistake.

That’s where Chambers finds himself. He will never admit it -and perhaps his hours with his team lend him to being a better expert on his players than the rest of us- but years of watching the same group of players doesn’t lead you to believe they’re simply being mismanaged. There is reason to believe this team can be better, there is little reason they a can be better every single night.

That leads you to believe that maybe they just quite aren’t good enough to get the job done this year.

And so the coin flips to Chambers. His first year was a trap from the outset, his second season crippled by injury. By the time last season came around the team was good enough to win, but the bounces didn’t go their way, the losses were by the slimmest of margins after playing their guts out for 38 minutes. Coaching? Sure. Bad luck? Absolutely. Nerves? You bet. 

Some of that falls on Chambers, and he knows it and will admit it in his own way. Penn State has lost a lot of games it could have won. It is as simple as that. That blame falls equally in most cases on the players and the coaches. That’s the nature of losing.

Equally though the achievement that got Penn State to the point of losing Big Ten games by only a few points is something that can’t be ignored. The talent gap between the top and the bottom is closing and continues to close under Chambers. That doesn’t guarantee wins along the way, but it means the chances of success will continue to increase as the talent does. When you fall short of that success there is reason to point the finger at someone. Penn State basketball hasn’t been just surviving in Big Ten play, it has been getting closer to winning.

And so the 2014-15 season is another reiteration of what we’ve seen before. A lot of “almost”. A lot of needing for everything to happen perfectly and the bounces to help Penn State for the wins to come their way. Almost certainly things would be more positive had Penn State won a few of the early winnable games. Simply succeeding can help breed confidence and success.

Penn State’s players may not be good enough to win at a high level consistently, but they’re good enough that a few wins could help turn those closes losses into close victories. They’re good enough to win in the Big Ten.

That was at least the program’s hope heading into Big Ten play after starting the year 12-1. A record that was the result of Penn State making plays against teams they should beat but could just as easily lose to. It was a delicate balance between getting wins and getting challenges.

When the Big Ten came around, it was the other team being just good enough to win even though it could have just as easily lost. Something that DJ Newbill has almost made happen all on his own.

All of this simply a way of stating what has to be said in a public forum. Penn State can’t fire Pat Chambers. Sandy Barbour can’t squeeze her trigger finger for the sake of making her first hire. Not to say that Chambers is untouchable, but simply that it’s shortsighted.

So why will things change in the future?

Honestly they may not.

But as Penn State stands months away from welcoming the self-titled “best recruiting class in the program’s history” and starts in on 2016 with another strong haul, change risks losing all of that. And for a program that has only just started to do what the program should have been doing years ago -recruiting in the state’s hotbed-  it would be fitting for athletics to move on as the program finally got out from under the rubble the previous coach left behind.

Penn State will probably chicken and egg the basketball program into oblivion. Win and we’ll help. Need help to win? Well win. It’s clear that athletics’ interest is singular at this particular juncture. That made more evident by the fact fans are rarely turned away from football games and those games aren’t advertised as being at home when they really are away.

That doesn’t mean Chambers is above criticism or that his players can be excused for being less than their best. And go ahead and be frustrated. They are.

It just means that while fans may feel like the progress is too slow, that for a program that has simply existed and little else, even just the existence of the hypothetical possibility that things could reasonably change in the coming years is reason enough to wait and see what happens next.

Because even if it turns out Chambers isn’t the guy to change Penn State basketball, at least there is a visible effort going into an attempt to.

And that’s more than most at Penn State can say they’ve done.