Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1332070
| M E N ' S B A S K E T B A L L LEARNING CURVE Since his arrival at Penn State in 2018, Izaiah Brockington has been trending upward T ensions boiled over in the waning minutes, as fifth-ranked Illinois kept Penn State at arm's length on Dec. 23 at the Bryce Jordan Center. After Jamari Wheeler was tagged for a fifth personal foul with 27 seconds to play, the Illini's Ayo Dosunmu bumped chests with the senior point guard, eventually drawing technical fouls for both sides. The Nit- tany Lions went on to lose, 98-81, drop- ping to 0-2 to start a brutally challenging Big Ten slate. And as the game ended, Iza- iah Brockington, Penn State's co-leading scorer with 21 points on an electric 10-of- 15 shooting performance, found himself reflecting on the mag- nitude of the moment. "We know that we've got to learn from everything," he said. "As a leader, I've got to go back and look at things that I could have done bet- ter personally, times where I just sat back and watched our guys get pummeled. We've just got to take it as a lesson and figure out how to move on from it." That attitude has guided Brockington's ascent from a sixth man during the Nit- tany Lions' 2019-20 campaign to one of its most integral players this year. Leading the team in scoring through mid-January with averages of 15.1 points and 4.7 re- bounds per outing, the fourth-year transfer out of St. Bonaventure has taken a pronounced next step. Brockington arrived at Penn State in the summer of 2018, sat out the subsequent season due to NCAA requirements, then made an infrequent mark in the Lions' surge toward a top-10 ranking last year. He scored 23 points in a victory over Iowa at the Palestra last January and boosted Penn State in its February win against Minnesota before capping the month with a team-high 16-point effort in a win against Rutgers. But he was unable to have the same impact on a game-by- game basis, as his minutes varied de- pending on the situation. The same would not be true of the 2020-21 season, though. With two of the team's most important offensive contrib- GETTING DEFENSIVE Brockington's defensive versatility has been a key asset for Penn State, and he's also been a force this year on the opposite end of the floor. Photo by Marc-Gregor Campre- don/MGoBlog