Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/904141
L amar Stevens tipped off his sopho- more season at Penn State with a very familiar-looking stat line. With the Nittany Lions facing Campbell at the Bryce Jordan Center on Nov. 10, Stevens saw 28 minutes of action, chip- ping in eight points and six rebounds, nearly matching his averages from the sea- son before. He also reignited one of the more troubling trends from his first season with the Lions, fouling out with 6 minutes, 53 seconds left in the game. "Lamar has got to understand positioning, Lamar has got to understand how to stay out of foul trouble, he's got to learn how to move his feet better, he's got to play long and wide. It's something that we're con- stantly working on," head coach Patrick Chambers said. "We've got to keep him out of foul trouble. We've really got to work on the defensive end on keeping him out of foul trouble." Stevens knows it, too. Although he finished the 2016-17 sea- son as the Nittany Lions' second-leading scorer with an average of 12.7 points per game, his minutes were impacted by con- sistent foul trouble. In fact, he led the team with 90 personal fouls on the sea- son, disqualifying himself three times while playing with four fouls in another seven games. One of Penn State's biggest assets on both ends of the floor, Stevens acknowl- edged that the fouls diminished his pro- ductivity last season. "There were a lot of games where I DOUBLE TROUBLE Stevens and Watkins are poised to give PSU a big lift – if they can stay on the court DRIVE TIME The most foul-prone Nittany Lion last season, Stevens ran into trou- ble again in the team's opener, fouling out of the game against Campbell with just under seven minutes left to play. Photo by Steve Manuel M E N ' S B A S K E T B A L L BY NATE BAUER nbauer@bluewhiteonline.com