Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1496986
M A Y 2 0 2 3 4 5 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M among the nation's top 75 prospects by On3, and they fit Shrewsberry's plan to build the program through traditional recruiting and development rather than via the transfer portal. On Aug. 3, Royal chose Ohio State, an understandable decision by a player from Pickerington, Ohio, but still a tough pill to swallow. Three weeks later, Booth hopped aboard for Penn State, commit- ting on Aug. 24. Shrewsberry and his staff had hoped it would be the first of at least two commitments, but it turned out to be the last. On the same day that Booth an- nounced for PSU, Harris-Smith com- mitted to Maryland. Ducharme picked Xavier on Aug. 25, while Hansberry chose Illinois three days later. Clearing The Air The misses stung, but they provided a snapshot of how the recruiting game had changed. Among the commitments, Penn State landed the son of the head coach and one of his best friends, as well as the son of the Denver Nuggets' general manager, a PSU alum. NIL considerations had not been a fac- tor in the recruitment of that trio, but the staff believed they did play a role with the prospects that Penn State lost, par- ticularly Hansberry. The Mount Saint Joseph standout was heading 600 miles from his home in Silver Spring, Md., to play for the team that is widely believed to have the Big Ten's most formidable NIL war chest for men's basketball. The feedback they were receiving on the recruiting trail led to something of an existential crisis for Shrewsberry and his staff. They had already been working to ensure that the Penn State athletics administration understood the important role that NIL offerings were going to play in their recruiting efforts, and now their concerns were more urgent than ever. The administrative response was per- ceived as lukewarm. New athletics direc- tor Patrick Kraft had just taken over, and