Blue White Illustrated

cludes three of last season's top four scorers (Shep Garner, Payton Banks and Josh Reaves), as well as two potential im- pact players who will be making their debuts: redshirt freshman forward Mike Watkins and redshirt junior guard Terrence Samuel. Before transferring to Penn State last year, Samuel played at Con- necticut and was a member of the Huskies' 2014 national championship team. Earlier this summer, Blue White Illus- trated website editor Nate Bauer sat down with Chambers to talk about the program's future. Here's what he had to say: BWI Is the freshman class's pedigree a cut above? CHAMBERS I think these four kids are very mature. Very mature. I think they understand it, and the feedback I've been getting from the four recruits has been phenomenal. They're all working hard. They took a little time off, they had the prom season. Now they're refocused, they're working hard, getting in shape, getting shots up, getting better. They asked me what they needed to work on, and I told them what areas of weakness I wanted to see them work on. BWI Are they more likely to be pre- pared for this level? CHAMBERS It really can go one of two ways. You can think, I've arrived and I'm really good and I'm top 100 and that's it. I'm just going to show up. Because sometimes they just show up. But I think we've got winners and we've got kids who are competitors. And I think we've got kids who really want to play right away and want to make an impact. So that's why they're already working. BWI How much does their experience with high-level competition help them? CHAMBERS That's when the guys – guys like Tony, Lamar, Naz and Joe – step up. I would say the same thing about Shep. Shep went for 25 against Ohio State. Nobody has talked about that. He was never even mentioned for honorable mention [All-Conference], nothing in the Big Ten. The last eight games that this kid had were unbelievable. The first 10 games, if you recall, we played on the road seven out of the first 10. So you might have a dry spell if you're playing on the road that much. Madison Square Garden [against Michigan], second half he was fine. Minnesota, he helped us win that game. He was consistent at Northwestern. So he had a couple of good games in there. Now, the road games he struggled. At Purdue, Ne- braska, he struggled. But then he got home and he was terrific. But nobody talks about him. BWI You've said that you want this team to run. Why is that such a high pri- ority? CHAMBERS Just because of the talent. We're going to be really deep. We're going to have great depth. God willing, no injuries. We haven't had any major injuries, which is terrific. But we've got to go. With the way Shep can play, the way Terrence can play, the way Tony likes to push, Lamar on a wing, Payton Banks. You've got guys who can run, who are athletic, and Mike and Julian [Moore]. You've got bigs right there rim- to-rim who are just as fast as the guards. And Joe is really good at trail. I'm not going to say he's Brandon Taylor, but he's very similar and is a very good trail 3-point shooter. So with those 10 or 12 guys who I men- tioned, I think that we've got to go. We've got to put pressure on teams to say, "Try to stop us. Do the best you can to try to stop us." And there are so many different combinations I'm playing with right now. That's the fun thing about the off-season. Julian and Mike playing to- gether. Yeah, Julian is fast and athletic, SUMMER SESSION Chambers talks with incoming freshman forward Lamar Stevens during a basketball camp earlier this sum- mer at Penn State. Photo by Nate Bauer

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