Penn State Basketball Recruiting: Recapping the Second July Evaluation Period

Last week, the Lions' coaching staff hit the road again for live period number two of July. While the first period came with much fanfare, the second period is where the July travel grind really starts to set in.

...Stay In So Many Hotels That Sometimes I Forget My Room Number ... #PennState

— DAII-PSU (@waynethepres) July 16, 2015

While the staff continues to rack up the flyer miles, here's a recap of some of the camps they scouted over last weekend.

Ty Lawson/Victor Oladipo All-American Camp (Hyattsville, MD)

With the Nike EYBL circuit over for the year, Penn State's Team Final targets were at DeMatha Catholic High School last weekend at the second annual Lawson/Oladipo All-American camp. The Team Final trio of Dylan Painter, Lamar Stevens and Nazeer Bostick were in action, while Tony Carr continues to sit out July with a hip injury. In case you missed it, Carr has cut his recruitment down to 5 schools as the injury will prevent him from gaining more exposure on the circuit. Penn State made the cut and is now trending in 247's Crystal Ball predictions for the top-50 point guard.

Scout.com caught up with Painter at the event, who maintains his open status regarding his recruitment. He has recently picked up offers from Pitt, Clemson and NC State, but he assured Lions247 that Penn State remains in the hunt. He has yet to pick up a Villanova offer despite having a solid spring with their coaches in attendance, which is good news for PSU's chances with the Hershey native. You can check out some of the dunks he threw down at the end of this video.

Lamar Stevens caused quite the stir when he told Scout.com he has a probable top 5 of Pitt, Indiana, Marquette, Temple and Villanova, although he gave Pat Lawless 7 schools in another interview that also included PSU and Xavier as "schools recruiting him hardest". Once the top-5 quote started making the Twitter rounds, Lamar backtracked and maintained he is still wide open in his recruitment. Here's some highlights of Lamar at the camp.

Other local prospects in attendance included two key targets for PSU in the 2017 class: 6'7" forward Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree (Neumann-Goretti/Team Final) recently earned an offer this July and 6'2" point guard Aaron Thompson (Paul VI/Team Takeover) has been a Dwayne Anderson target for a while now. Thompson maintains he's not in a rush with his recruitment, although he reportedly holds offers already from the likes of Miami, SMU, Temple, VCU and George Mason. Arnaldo Toro, a 6'9" big man in the 2016 class, was also in attendance and CoBL caught up with him at the event. The Albany City Rocks prospect claims a Penn State offer.

Under Armour Association Finals (Atlanta, GA)

Under Armour's circuit wrapped up with their own finals tourney in Georgia during the second live period. Penn State commit Joe Hampton's DC Premier team had a nice run to the semi-finals. They upset the defending champs, We-R1, 50-49 in the quarterfinals, where Alani Moore scored 17 and Hampton chipped in 8. We-R1 features a ton of talent in Trevon Duval, Quade Green, and Sedee Keita, along with one of Penn State's newest offers, 2017 wing Kodye Pugh. DC Premier then lost a heartbreaker to eventual champion Team Charlotte 60-57 in overtime.

DeAndre Hunter continued his dominance for Philly Pride in Atlanta, scoring 18 points and grabbing 8 rebounds in a lost to Team Breakdown. He followed that up with 28 points and 5 rebounds in a win over top-3 recruit Josh Jackson (Jackson sat for most of the game). He has racked up more offers from UConn, Seton Hall and Arkansas. One of the hottest recruits this summer, it will remain to be seen if PSU is in play for the Philadelphia forward when he narrows his list.

Recent 2018 offer Jahvon Quinerly helped lead his Sports U squad to the 15U championship. Quinerly and 5-star big man Naz Reid formed a dominant duo that went undefeated on this circuit. For more stats and results on all Under Armour's circuits, check out CircuitStats.com.

Other News & Notes

There were plenty of other events PSU likely attended, including the Nike Global Challenge, where 2016 guard Curtis Jones and 2017 guard Lonnie Walker competed. Jones finally received an offer last week, one that was a head-scratcher considering he has been a known commodity in the DMV area for a while. It seems far too late in the game for PSU to become a player in that recruitment.

The other big shoe company sponsored event of the period was the Adidas All-American Camp in New York. There were plenty of top talents at the showcase, which featured a unique all-star game at Rucker Park, but PSU hasn't been linked to many of the elite prospects in attendance.

At the backend of the period were two events that were hosted by familiar AAU programs.  The PSA Cardinals and Albany City Rocks combined to hold a skills combine with their own players, including Kevin Huerter, Quinton Rose, Najja Hunter and Mohammed Bamba. Meanwhile, Team Final participated in Team Takeover's Summer Takeover tournament in the DMV, where Dwayne Anderson and Chambers were present.

Today marks the start of the last live period of the summer. There are numerous events all over the place yet again, but the main event will be in Las Vegas for AAU nationals. Team Final's 17U team will be out there, among many others. Hopefully the Penn State staff behaves themselves better than some of these coaches' stories from Gary Parrish at CBS.