Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1092898
L ast October, before the 2018-19 college basketball season tipped off, a Columbia University adjunct lecturer on basketball analytics produced a feature for ESPN.com. "Which coaches are best at developing talent?" asked the headline above John Gasaway's story, a picture of Villanova's Jay Wright accom- panying the text. Explaining his methodology, Gasaway detailed his use of the Box Plus/Minus statistics through the past eight seasons of college hoops. Those numbers offer an indication of a team's strengths and weaknesses when any given player is on the floor, and by combining them with his own statistics, Gasaway was able to rank the top 15 active major-conference coaches in terms of their ability to get more out of players than the expected level of production. Wright, a seasoned veteran with a pair of NCAA championships, three Final Four appearances and six Big East crowns on his resume, earned the top spot. Utah's Larry Krystkowiak, Michigan State's Tom Izzo, South Carolina's Frank Martin, North Carolina's Roy Williams and Ohio State's Chris Holtmann followed. At No. 7 was Penn State's Patrick Chambers. "Yes, Pat Chambers," Gas- away wrote. "While you weren't paying attention to Penn State last season, both Tony Carr and Josh Reaves were recording year- to-year upswings that are rare when your name isn't Victor Oladipo. … All I know is returning Nittany Lions have tended to be better than would've been ex- pected based on their prior season profiles." This season, Cham- bers has needed to ac- celerate that pace. Welcoming a fresh- man class that in- cluded two starters in shooting guard Myles Dread and combo point/shooting guard Rasir Bolton, the Nit- tany Lions had immediate needs at key spots on the floor. Through the first two-thirds of the sea- son, results were mixed for both. Bolton and Dread produced season-high point totals within the first two months of the campaign, with Bolton dropping 27 on Colgate in December and Dread scoring 19 at DePaul in November. But those op- ponents were not the ones in which the Nittany Lions most needed the players' best contributions. Penn State lost its first 10 Big Ten games, going 0-8 in January, as Bolton and Dread had difficulty acclimating to the rigors of conference play. Bolton fin- M E N ' S B A S K E T B A L L LEARNING CURVE Freshman guards Myles Dread and Rasir Bolton spearhead February turnaround | SHOOTING STARS Dread (below) and Bolton (right) were among the biggest reasons for a late-season surge in which the Nittany Lions won five of seven games in February. Photos by Ryan Snyder