Blue White Illustrated

en route to a 71-52 loss. That the Lions managed to hold the margin of defeat under 20 points was the most notewor- thy accomplishment in an otherwise miserable effort. Meeting with local media for the first time since the suspension, Chambers admitted that it had been difficult to watch the game from the basement of his home rather than front and center along Penn State's sideline. He also hailed the effort of the coaching staff in his absence, saying the team had been prepared for the outing. Said Chambers, "I just think there are some times when the head coach isn't there… there's al- ways a little bit of a difference, and I think you may have seen that in the sec- ond half." Although the quality of their effort may have differed in the demoralizing loss to Wisconsin, many of the problems that have plagued the Nittany Lions this sea- son were plainly evident. Turnovers were especially contagious against the Badgers. Penn State went into the matchup averaging 13.1 turnovers per game to rank 140th nationally and 10th in the Big Ten. Those were middling num- bers, and they got worse against Wiscon- sin, as PSU totaled 16 turnovers leading to 19 Badger points. Meanwhile, Wisconsin yielded only four points off of seven turnovers. Compounding the ball-handling prob- lems, the Badgers shot 49 percent from the floor, while Penn State hit only 38 percent of its attempts. Shooting has been a problem throughout the season. Heading into a home game against Michi- gan State on Jan. 13, the Lions were hit- ting only 41.1 percent of their attempts to rank 312th nationally and next-to-last in the Big Ten. Their 3-point percentage – 31.2 – ranked 297th nationally and 13th in the conference. Because of its shooting woes, and in spite of a solid 12.5 offensive rebounds per game, Penn State was ranked 302nd out of 351 Division I teams in scoring offense at 67.9 points per game. The Lions had the lowest-scoring offense in the Big Ten, and that disappointing average was being propped up by the nonconference sched- ule. Against league opponents, they were averaging 58.4 points per game. Flummoxed by the Nittany Lions' in- ability to put the ball in the hoop, whether from the floor or from the foul line, where they were hitting only 67 per- cent of their attempts, Chambers said he and his staff have been determined to find solutions. "We're breaking down that offense like no other staff," he said. "What we can do? Are we putting guys in the right position? What do we have to change? What do we have to wrinkle? "Or do we just keep getting better at what we're doing and the shots are going to fall once these guys continue to get the experience that they need to play in the Big Ten? We're going to keep working at that." Coming off an NIT championship last April, Chambers acknowledged that Penn State's up-and-down season has been a source of frustration. Tony Carr, Shep Garner, Julian Moore and Nazeer Bostick all departed in the off-season, leaving the eighth-year coach and his staff with a very young team this year. His players, many of them freshmen, often need a boost of positive energy to push through the difficulties, and Chambers said he has tried to provide it. "It's been an awesome challenge. I've been embracing this. I'm the optimist, forever the optimist, and the younger guys are really trying and the older guys are trying," he said. "It's been quite some time since we've had a young team… so it's brought me back to those [earlier] times, and it's been hard because of the patience you need. "Last year, we had a really talented group that figured it out a little bit late, but they reached their potential and I was really proud of that team. And now you still have high expectations. You still want to push. You still want to drive. You still want to get them to where they need to go as players and as men. But yet, we're very young. We're playing guys at critical spots who don't have much experience in the Big Ten. They're growing up, and they have to continue to do that." ■ T hroughout his eight-year tenure at Penn State, Patrick Chambers has been a fiery coach, on and away from the hardwood. It's in his DNA. He has long asserted that attitude is the key to success in both basketball and in life, and he has used his personal in- tensity to convey that message. But he is also gregarious and affa- ble, and while he wants to see players mirror his intensity, he also wants them to exhibit a certain presence of mind. This is a coach who has had his team take yoga in the hope that the classes would instill the composure he wants to see. On Jan. 3, during the Nittany Lions' 68-55 loss to No. 2 Michigan, Cham- bers briefly lost that sense of bal- ance. During a timeout midway through the first half, Chambers ripped into a players-only huddle to yell at true freshman guard Myles Dread, who had just allowed an easy Wolverine bucket on the defensive end of the floor. The coach shoved Dread in the chest with his right hand, forcing him to step back. After the game, unprompted by re- porters, Chambers wrapped up his news conference by apologizing to Dread. "I absolutely love Myles Dread. He committed to us as a sophomore, so I've known him forever, him and his parents. I absolutely love him," Chambers said. "I apologize to him. I was just trying to challenge him. I was just trying to get the best out of him, and hopefully I'll do it differ- ently next time. Not hopefully. I will Chambers' loss of composure was a rare lapse CO M M E N TA RY B Y N AT E B A U E R

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