Penn State men’s basketball added to its 2022 recruiting class on Wednesday afternoon following the verbal commitment of Evan Mahaffey.
Mahaffey a 6-foot-5, 175 pound shooting forward out of Archbishop Moeller in Cincinnati, Ohio is Penn State’s second verbal commitment for its 2022 class. He joins point guard Kanye Clary who committed back in June. Mahaffey is a three-star prospect with offers from schools like Cincinnati, Kansas State, West Virginia, Xavier and Indiana among others.
Overall the 247Network Composite Ranking rates Mahaffey as the No. 185 prospect in 2022 class and the No. 44 power forward in the country in addition to the No. 6 overall prospect in the state of Ohio State. He is rated a three-star prospect by the network and Rivals.
Mahaffey and Moeller are the only two verbal commitments under new head coach Micah Shrewsberry so far this cycle. Shrewsberry and his staff are still waiting for the college choices from No. 5 overall prospect Dereck Lively, Otega Oweh and Jameel Brown. All three prospects would be among the highest profile players to commit to Penn State in the program’s history.
Timelines for all three players are unknown publicly at this time. Oweh had previously announced his intentions to cut his list of schools to just seven but the date for that announcement has since come and gone. Lively – among the most coveted prospects in the nation – has Penn State in his final few schools but it appears unlikely that the Bellefonte native will ultimately choose the Nittany Lions over traditional powers.
As for Brown, the four-star prospect and former Purdue verbal commitment is undecided with little to no news as it pertains to the possibility of following Shrewsberry from West Lafayette to State College.
