With Brandon Austin's commitment last night, Chambers has forced my hand at some recruiting coverage I was hoping to push out immediately after this season. Although most of us have already seen the waves Chambers has made in the recruiting realm, there was still skepticism until that first big time recruit actually made the call. Geno Thorpe had impressive offers but was still rated a fringe Top 100 player at best like Taran Buie. To be fair to Buie, he was ranked similarly to where Austin is now when he committed, but then he fell down the rankings. Judging by his offers, Brandon Austin appears to be that first true 4-star prospect who spurned the big boys of the Big East to come to PSU.

Chambers has landed 5 players since he was hired in June, and it seems each new one is bigger than the last. Momentum is so big on the recruiting trail, and there's no question PSU is gaining steam in PA right now, Philadelphia in particular. However, PSU can't hand out many more scholarship offers unless others open up. All of that will play out over the next year, but if I had to guess, I'd say PSU ends up with a four-man class in 2013.

If that indeed becomes the case, I'd expect those four guys to form PSU's first ever nationally ranked recruiting class. Why? As the Recruit Scoop hinted, there are more big names on the way, likely AAU teammates or friends of the current commitments from the Philly/NJ area. Austin said it himself to David Jones that DJ Newbill, Brandon Taylor, and Geno Thorpe all helped lure him to State College. All these players know who's who in Philly basketball (and nearby NJ). It also helps even more when some of them play for the same AAU program (Team Philly). All of these guys will have a great family vibe going before they even step on campus and will likely continue to spread the word about Penn State basketball all through the area.

Penn State is now a viable basketball option for any Philadelphia basketball player.

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This game pretty much followed the script we all thought it would. Penn State got off to yet another dreadful start on the road and played a similar first half to the Iowa game. The second half didn't start much better until PSU finally found a groove and went on a 23-6 run. But then MSU woke back up and put away PSU behind Draymond Green's unstoppable force. Outside of PSU's run that lasted 7:30 in the second half, MSU outscored the Nits 71-34 the rest of the game.

Penn State came out firing from three, but nearly all of them were good looks from the guys who are suppose to be the 'shooters'. When the first media timeout came, Penn State was 0-6 (0-5 from 3) with 4 turnovers. They were fortunate to only be down 4-0, but it wasn't until 8 minutes in before PSU got on the board. This team's psyche is so fragile once the first shot or two doesn't drop, especially on the road. All of the execution goes out the window. Tim Frazier started pressing and making terrible plays (6 turnovers), while the rest of the team settled for worse shots and the offense stagnated.

Defensively, Penn State was pretty good, but they just couldn't matchup with MSU's size and athleticism on the boards. MSU grabbed 47.2% of their offensive rebounds, and there were plenty of opportunities (36). Once the game got tight in the 2nd half, MSU went back to Green, who finished with 23 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 assists. When Green got position inside, PSU couldn't stop anything whether Green finished on his own or dished to cutters.

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Eric's awesome-as-usual preview of this clash can be found here

I almost decided to completely eschew a live game thread of what's likely to be an imminent beat down at the hands of Sparty tonight, but the thought of letting down the few of you live hoops thread die-hards nixed that idea. Tipoff is at 6:30 PM ET and can viewed on BTN or listened to on these radio affiliates, Sirius Ch 92, or XM Ch 191.

And as always: No porn, no racist/sexist/homophobic/trollish like comments, and no links to illegal video feeds of the game. Oh, and hope against hope that there's enough ATTITUDE in the air to potentially spark an upset...

Fortunately, Penn State's gauntlet stretch in the middle of the Big Ten season is almost coming to a close and some winnable home games are on the horizon. However, Penn State is licking their wounds after another demoralizing road loss. The Lions were never competitive in Iowa City over this past weekend, getting down quickly 25-7 in the first half. They didn't quit and scored 45 points in the 2nd half, but Chambers accepts no moral victories. The opening letdown was "mind-blowing" to Chambers, who said he was pleased with the practices and walk-throughs before the game.

I wasn't building on the second twenty minutes. It was more like, I don't know how this can happen, we need to change our mindset, we need to change our ways, our approach. We need to get better. Because we still can get a lot better as a team, collectively.

As you can see by the numbers below, that first half was one of the worst ever offensively. The fact that they were that close to having a higher TO% than eFG% is incredibly terrible.

It's a small miracle that PSU hit eight threes in the second half to up the total efficiency to a respectably bad 0.91 PPP. In case you were wondering about this, Tim Frazier scored 8 points (42% of PSU's total) and shot 44.4% in the first half. The rest of the team made just 5 shots on 23.8% eFG%. However, Frazier wasn't spectacular himself with 4 turnovers to his 0 assists in the half (two were on carrying calls). For the game, Frazier totaled 23 points (on 55% eFG%), 5 assists (since his teammates made 14 FG in the 2nd half), and 5 rebounds.

The road continues to bring out the worst in Penn State, as they are now the only team in the Big Ten without a conference road win. It's unlikely their next game will yield their first.

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McCaffery Freak Out (via pulling69)

Apologies for getting this up so close to game time, but it was too good not to get up. RossWB over at Black Heart Gold Pants was kind enough to participate in the latest installment of ITBUUS, for today's clash between Penn State and Iowa.

BSD: Year 2 of Frandemonium (i.e. Iowa Coach Fran McCaffrey) has the Hawkeyes flirting with a .500 record in Big Ten play halfway through the conference schedule. Has this met or exceeded Iowa fans' expectations? What has been the key to Iowa's turnaround thus far?

RossWB: The non-conference schedule didn't quite meet expectations. Given that Iowa had such a weak slate of non-conference opponents, not many people really expected them to lose 5 games before B1G play (especially to the likes of Campbell). Conversely, not many people expected them to be 4-6 at this point in the B1G season, either. The home loss to Nebraska a week ago was disappointing and the blowout nature of the losses to Ohio State, Michigan State, and Indiana was disappointing, but there have been some great wins, too, like dominating a good Michigan team, sweeping Minnesota, and beating Wisconsin in the impregnable Kohl Center. So things have been pretty rocky, but in general I'd say things are trending slightly ahead of expectations, especially given the strength of the league.

The biggest reason for Iowa's turnaround has been the breakout play of Roy Devyn Marble and Aaron White. Matt Gatens has been a steady performer for most of the season, but Marble has really started to emerge as a very good player. He's second on the team in points (11.4) and assists (3.3) and he's displayed a really impressive knack for making clutch plays: he made key jumpers to preserve the win at Wisconsin and came up big in the win over Minnesota the other night, too. White has so far managed to avoid the freshman wall and he's third on the team in points (9.7) and rebounds (3.8). They've really given Iowa a big spark.

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What do you do when you're a fanboy blogger who can't find the time to tune into coach Chambers' weekly presser? You call in to the Nittany Lion hotline (or in this case, tweet). Chambers' weekly radio show is 6 PM every Thursday during the season with Steve Jones and is brought to you live at Damon's in State College.

One of the unseen aspects of Chambers new program is his scheduling philosophy. The non-conference schedule this year was basically in place before Chambers ever stepped on campus. However, all of PSU's home-and-home series have concluded (Duquesne, St. Joe's, and Ole Miss), so the schedule is open this year with no prior commitments from the previous regime.

As we noticed under DeChellis, how you schedule can determine your postseason fate. The NCAA rules state that any team can play 29 total games or 27 games plus a no-more-than-four game exempt event (like the Old Spice Classic, Hall of Fame Tip-Off, etc.). The Big Ten plays an 18-game conference schedule so you could play 11 games, or 9 games plus a preseason tourney. Most teams participate in the exempt tourneys (mostly run by ESPN) because it offers more games against better competition to prepare for conference play.

I asked Chambers about his scheduling philosophy on the show. His reply was something I've been hoping to hear from a Penn State coach for a long time:

My scheduling philosophy is we gotta go out and compete. We gotta find a variety of styles of play because that’s what the Big Ten is. It always helps recruiting when you play some of the better teams in other conferences.

It should prepare us, because that’s what you need to do, you need to be prepared for the Big Ten and that’s the goal. It’s not about wins for me, it’s about getting these kids ready, preparing them for the Big Ten.

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Jeff Borzello tweeted an interesting stat the other day that somehow has gone unnoticed. Tim Frazier actually averages 8.2 assists a game at home but just 4.0 assists on the road. Yes, that means he assists more than twice as much at the BJC than on the road. From the naked eye, such a wide discrepancy screams of home statistician bias, since all BJC game stats are recorded by Penn State's staff. This train of thought could easily conclude that Tim Frazier's home assist totals are a product of inflation.

But is this really the case? Anyone who has followed Penn State this season knows how horribly this team has shot on the road. That has to have some effect, right? It would be an injustice to Frazier's great season if we didn't at least attempt to defend his honor and prove he earned every one of those assists.

The Standard Shooting Numbers

Obviously the success of assisting depends on your teammate making the shot. Therefore, the first step was to simply look at the team's FG% both on the road and at home. However, it's more complicated than that because one must eliminate Tim Frazier's shooting numbers from the equation. Frazier is the leading scorer (29.2% of PSU's points) and shot-taker (29% of the shots when he's on the floor), so this should have a significant impact on the numbers.

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It wasn't quite as bad as the last time these two teams met, but it sure was ugly. The Nits were unable to grit out a few more buckets to upset the Badgers in front of a large student crowd at the BJC. It was unfortunate because PSU wasted a very good defensive effort and caught an off-shooting night from Wisconsin. Penn State moved to 10-13 (2-8 in the Big Ten) on the year.

The PSU offense ran strictly through Jermaine Marshall (13 points) and Tim Frazier (21 points, 7 assists). Cammeron Woodyard wasn't able to shoot like he usually does in the BJC, only making 1 of 6 shots. Jon Graham got a few looks around the bucket on some nice feeds. Otherwise, no one else was interested in scoring the basketball. Matt Glover played 30 minutes and didn't take one shot. Sasa Borovnjak and Ross Travis were also no shows on the scoreboard. Nick Colella hit a three-pointer, which was enough to earn him 6th man of the game honors by the BTN.

After the first four minutes, the score was 8-6 in favor of Penn State. Obviously that pace didn't last very long as the two teams combined for just 7 points over the next 10 minutes of play. Penn State found some rhythm with Jermaine Marshall (10 first half points on 5-7 FG) and went on a 10-0 run to open a 18-9 lead. A strange ending to the half due to a couple of horrendous calls allowed for Jordan Taylor to get a put-back at the buzzer. Penn State led 23-17.

The beginning of the 2nd half was going to be big for Penn State, and they came out flat. There was no momentum, and Wisconsin took control of the game. Penn State's play on both sides suffered and after a 16-3 run to open the half, Wisconsin led by 7. Tim Frazier tried to put the team on his back, scoring 17 of his 21 in the 2nd half. For most of the 2nd period, Frazier was the only offense for the Nittany Lions.

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