Penn State Basketball: Bellefonte Native Dereck Lively Commits To Duke

The No. 2 overall prospect in the nation Dereck Lively verbally committed to Duke on Monday evening ending a unique chapter in Penn State men’s basketball history with the Nittany Lions in Lively’s Top 7 schools late into the process.

The 7-foot-1 center and Bellefonte native plays basketball at the Westttown School outside of Philadelphia while his mother Kathy Drysdale works for Penn State as Director of Marking and Fan Experience.

Generally speaking Lively was not actually expected to end up at Penn State although the center did take a visit to State College earlier this year. Additionally he is friends and AAU teammates with current four-star Penn State commit Jameel Brown and four-star shooting guard Otega Oweh who is scheduled to announce his commitment on Friday and is expected to also commit to Micah Shrewsberry and Penn State.

Oweh is the brother of current Baltimore Raven and former Penn State defensive end Odafe [Jayson] Oweh and current Nittany Lion Kaylen Oweh who was recently added to the Nittany Lions’ roster.

Penn State currently has the No. 18 overall recruiting class for the 2022 cycle per the 247 Network recently picking up a commitment from four-star center Kebba Njie who is rated the No. 104 prospect in the nation by the 247 Network while Brown is rated No. 127 and Oweh is the No. 73 overall prospect.

All three join already verbally committed prospects forward Evan Mahaffey and guard Kanye Clary in Penn State’s four-man 2022 class. Oweh’s commitment would give Penn State five verbal commitments and potentially a Top 10 recruiting class nationally.

All told while Penn State will always have a “what if?” factor regarding Lively, the Nittany Lions still stand to be in historically good shape with or without him.