The Micah Shrewsberry era at Penn State has a chance to start off on an interesting note following the news on Sunday that now former Purdue commit and four-star Philadelphia area guard Jameel Brown will reopen his recruitment.
Brown, rated Pennsylvania’s third-best prospect in the 2022 class and the 134th best player in the nation by the 247 Network’s composite rankings, was primarily recruited by Shrewsberry while at Purdue.
The addition of Brown would be an immediate splash for the future of a roster that has seen its fair share of overhaul in the past week. While it remains to be seen how many transfer portal-bound Nittany Lions actually opt to leave the program, it seems likely that more will choose to leave rather than stay.
In turn, even though 2021-22 season appears to be headed toward nothing short of a rebuilding year, the addition of Brown in 2022 would give Shrewsberry and his yet-to-be-announced staff a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.
Brown’s addition would be a welcome sight for the Nittany Lions for a long list of obvious reasons, but it’s the potential to help lure in even bigger fish that could make Brown an even more consequential splash for Shrewsberry right off the bat.
The first comes in the form of 7-foot-1 center Dereck Lively II, the 39th best prospect in the nation for the 2022 class — some 12 spots higher than former Nittany Lion high-watermark Tony Carr. Brown, who is teammates with Lively on the Philadelphia area EYBL program Team Final, picked up an offer from Penn State back in 2019.
As expected, Lively has all of the offers you might expect from a player of his caliber, but the one thing those programs don’t have?
Lively plays at Westtown School located in West Chester outside of Philadelphia, but he is a Bellefonte native.
The duo are also teammates with four-star guard Otega Oweh who recently picked up a Penn State offer under Shrewsberry’s watch. Oweh is rated the 12th best shooting guard in the nation for the 2022 class and the 100th overall recruit according to the 247 Network. As the name might suggest, Oweh is also the bother of former Penn State football defensive end Jayson Oweh.
All told Shrewsberry enters his first week on the job with an interesting trio of teammates and targets, all falling in the Top 100 of the 2022 cycle. Who — if any — Shrewsberry can actually reel in and sign remains to be seen, but if he can, it would certainly make the opening chapters far more interesting than the last time Penn State had to start a rebuild a decade ago.
