Penn State Basketball: Chambers Pleased With Newbill’s Progression at Point Guard

Playing point guard is hard enough. Now imagine having not played basketball for a year, changing positions and then having to play point guard in the toughest conference in America.

Sounds like fun.

For Penn State sophomore guard DJ Newbill, he has done just that. After sitting out a season because of NCAA transfer rules, Newbill made the switch from a wing guard to point guard following the loss of Tim Frazier to a season-ending injury.

So far the change has worked for the Nittany Lions, and while Penn State’s winless conference record makes the smaller details seem slightly insignificant, a closer look at Newbill’s numbers shows that he has managed the difficult switch well.

This season Newbill has averaged 15.5 points a game while pulling down six rebounds and dishing out four assists per contest. In comparison, Frazier averaged 18 points, six assists and five rebounds in 2012 en route to becoming one of the nation’s top point guards. To compare both players, all-time great guard Talor Battle averaged 16 points, five assists, and five rebounds a contest during the Nittany Lions’ 2008-09 season and eventual run to the NIT Championship.

“He has done a great job progressing into the point guard role,” Penn State coach Patrick Chambers said Friday. “It’s a very difficult switch. We’re talking about a guy who has to hold the ball for 40 minutes, where if he was playing his old position he is running down the floor thinking about what play we’re running. Now he has to do that, run the offense, get everybody involved, and he has to play the point guard on the other team.

“It’s a huge change. It’s a huge change. It’s one of the most difficult things to do. It’s like driving a car without a steering wheel. This is his first year, so really he’s a freshman, and he’s playing the point. That’s a huge change.”

Newbill will meet his latest challenge noon Saturday as the Nittany Lions take on No. 14 Ohio State and point guard Aaron Craft, one of the nation’s best defenders.

“Guys go hard at each other in practice,” Chambers said before the season started. “That gets them ready to face guys like an Aaron Craft or a Trey Burke. There are a lot of great guards, great players, in this league.”