Blue White Illustrated

STAR GAZING Chambers' recruiting class is comprised of four three-star prospects, including the 6-foot-10 Moore. Photo courtesy of Julian Moore senior at Shaler High School. California wingman Payton Banks earned second-team All-Southern Section honors this past season. And class sleeper candidate Julian Moore surged as a big man during his senior season at Germantown Academy near Philadelphia, earning second-team Class AAAA All-State recognition in the process. By those standards, Chambers' most recent recruiting haul is by far the best in the program's past decade. Delighted by the on-the-floor potential of each prospect and their intangibles, Chambers said he is going to have much more to work with than he did a season ago. Welcoming two guards (Thorpe and Woodward), a wing who can play anywhere from the point to the power forward position (Banks) and a big man (Moore) – along with guard John Johnson, who will become eligible in De- cember after transferring from Pitt – Chambers will have a drastically different lineup for the 2013 season. Especially when you compare it to the one that kicked and clawed its way to a 10-21 record last year. Throw in the return of senior point guard Tim Frazier, who is recovering from surgery after rupturing his Achilles tendon early this past season, the graduation of Sasa Borovnjak and Nick Collela, plus the transfers of Akosa Maduegbunam and Patrick Ackerman, and nearly half the Nittany Lions' roster will be different from the one that walked off the hardwood in Chicago following a first-round loss during the Big Ten tournament in March. Said Chambers, "We're going to have some depth. We're going to have some bench. It's going to be nice to have some options. It's going to challenge me as a coach. The last two years were easy, you know? We were who we were, and now it's going to be, 'All right, now we've gotta get Johnny in there.' " Johnny, of course, is Johnson, a 6foot-1, 170-pound shooting guard who transferred to Penn State early last December. Though NCAA transfer rules prohibit Johnson from playing in games until a full 12 months after the transfer, he has been a full participant in the Nittany Lions' team practices and activities. His performances have left Chambers encouraged that he will give the team a game-changing sixth man who can make an immediate impact with his dynamic scoring ability. "I think come the middle of December, he's going to be exactly what we need," Chambers said. "We've got a man now. We've got a 21-, 22-year-old guy who has been through the mill, been through the Big East, and he can flat-out score the basketball. He's like [former Detroit Pistons sixth man] Vinnie Johnson. He's going to come off the bench. He's a guy who could just fill it up and come in right away and get some buckets for you." Moore, meanwhile, is a somewhat under-the-radar prospect. At 6-10, 220 pounds, he will instantly be the Nittany Lions' tallest player when he steps foot on campus in June. With his Philadelphia roots and impressive performances that led to a McDonald's All-American Game nomination, Moore is expected to immediately compete with Jon Graham for playing time in the paint. "He is good. I think everybody missed the boat on him," Chambers said. "I think a lot of people were upset because they secondguessed, and we didn't. We made a great evaluation, and with him, we went all in, and he chose us for every reason: because of the academics, because of the league, because of us, because of who we are, because of where we're going. He was MVP of the league he played in and was second-team All-State. I think people [realized] they missed the boat. "He's long, he's athletic, he's got long arms, he can jump through the roof, he's got great hands, he runs the floor extremely well, he's a very good foul shooter at 75 percent. He's exactly what we need." Ultimately, Chambers added, what the Nittany Lions need are players who are not only highly productive on the court, but who also share his intensely competitive attitude and are driven to succeed. With this class, leaving aside the platitudes, rankings and physical measurables, Chambers is convinced he's found the right mix of players to begin the process of carrying the program forward. "They love to play. They're winners," he said. "They're serious about getting their degrees. They bring skill, they bring toughness, they bring a mentality that is going to help us compete in the Big Ten for a long time."

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