Penn State senior guard Myles Dread has seen it all. Game winners hit, game winners clang, transfers, coaching changes, big wins and heartbreaking losses. He has felt just about every emotion that you can feel on a basketball court and then some. So of course, with four years already under his belt, Dread is about to start the whole song and dance all over again – please sir, can I have some more? A fifth year with unknown emotions still to come as Penn State tips off its 2022 next Monday.
But one thing is for sure, Dread is healthy, for what seems like the first time in ages. A shoulder that has spent the better part of the last year is no longer held together by trainers’ tape. Knees and joints that always feel tired and feeling fresh, suddenly the old guy doesn’t feel so old. In fact he feels like a new man.
“I think it was Saturday, we had a lighter practice because we had a scrimmage on Sunday and I just felt bouncy and moving around and feeling great,” Dread said last week. “I was dunking the ball with both hands, I haven’t done that in a while. [It felt like] Wow this is crazy. It felt like a relief, that I can get back to this point. Now it’s just keep on striving to get better.”
Penn State will need Dread to be at his best this season as the Nittany Lions look to shoot the ball well from the outside to make up for a growing corps of big men in the paint. Dread has surprisingly never averaged double-digit in his career in State College but has a long list of game-winning shots and timely makes throughout his career. If any Nittany Lion is an example that numbers don’t tell the whole story, Dread might just be the one.
“This offseason I actually sat down and didn’t do anything for a while and recovered and do everything necessary to get back to where I needed to be and I’m excited,” Dread added. “It was very trying [last season] I think that an injury like that it can get frustrating at times and I got down on myself every once in a while. But guys like Seth [Lundy] and John [Harrar] and even Jalen [Pickett], they were the reason that kind of kept me going and I didn’t give up […] their drive every day helped me come to the gym and helped me get better.”
Dread enters the season having shot 40.7% from beyond the arc, a number he will look to improve on but perhaps more importantly find consistency with. Like many three-point shooters Dread was streaky at times, but finished the 2021 season going 22-for-44 from beyond the arc over the Nittany Lions’ final 12 games of the year. If Dread can find that kind of stroke to start off 2022 and maintain it, the only emotion he might end up feeling his fifth and final season would be an often elusive one – satisfaction.
