Kentucky Wildcat Basketball – Know Your Enemy: Penn State Nittany Lions

GAME 3

11/19/2011 – 12:00 PM
PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS (3-0)
MOHEGAN SUN ARENA – UNCASVILLE, CT

TV:  NONE
AVAILABLE ONLINE @ ESPN3.COM

SERIES HISTORY
KENTUCKY LEADS 2-1

LAST MEETING:
11/25/2000:  Penn State  73  KENTUCKY  68

Last year’s version of the Penn State Nittany Lions made the NCAA Tournament but lost to Temple in their opening game to finish 19-15.   But everything has changed since then.  The Nittany Lions lost four seniors and head coach Ed DeChellis to Navy.  The Nittany Lions have a decidedly younger outlook with new head coach Pat Chambers, who is the Big 10’s youngest coach at age 39.  Chambers has his work cut out for him as he returns just one starter from last year.  For the sake of viewing, you would hope that he adopts a more uptempo style from his predecessor.  One of Penn State’s biggest wins last year was a 36-33 yawner over #13 Wisconsin.  Yes, the 36-33 was a final score.

Penn State comes into Saturday’s game undefeated, but their schedule has been the stuff of your favorite day old bakery.  You have to play the games on your schedule though, and Penn State owns wins over Hartford, Radford, and Long Island.   Penn State has not been seriously challenged yet, winning by 15, 16, and 9 but we are not talking about opponents the quality of Kansas either.  Let’s take a look at the Nittany Lions.

PROBABLE STARTERS

#25 – G – CAMMERON WOODYARD – SR, 6’5,  210
11.0 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 0.7 APG

#23 – G – TIM FRAZIER – JR, 6’1, 190
20.7 PPG, 8.7 APG, 5 RPG

#3 – G – TREY LEWIS – FR, 6’1, 175
9.7 PPG, 1.7 RPG, 1.7 APG

#35 – F – BILLY OLIVER – SO, 6’8, 215
7.7 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 0.7 APG

#21 – F – SASHA BOROVNJAK – SO, 6’9, 235
5.0 PPG, 3.7 RPG, 0.7 APG

THE BENCH

#5 – G – MATT GLOVER – SO, 6’4, 205
4.5 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 0.5 APG

#43 – F – ROSS TRAVIS – FR, 6’8, 215
2.7 PPG, 4.7 RPG, 0.0 APG

#25 – F – JONATHAN GRAHAM – FR, 6-8, 220
4.7 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 0.0 APG

To say that the Penn State offense goes through Tim Frazier would be an understatement. Frazier, the only returning starter, has exploded on the scene this year and is coming off a career high 26 point performance. Frazier is good at creating his own shot or dishing off to his team mates. He is also the best defender the Nittany Lions have, averaging 3.3 steals a game. Frazier also draws a lot of fouls and gets to the line a good bit. Cammeron Woodyard leads the Nittany Lions in rebounding on the season and he also has the most 3-pointers made. Like Frazier, Cammeron has really made the most of his opportunity to start, averaging 11 a game after 1.8 last year. Freshman Trey Lewis was not heavily recruited and is learning on the job as a starter. He’s the most consistent regular deep threat for the Nittany Lions, hitting 46.2% of his treys. Matt Glover did not play as a freshman and he brings good size and rebounding off the bench from a guard position.

The Nittany Lions front court is very young and small. Billy Oliver loves to launch shots from beyond the arc, but is no that good a shot from either close or far away. He is hitting 32% on his FG and 28.6% from long-range. Undaunted, he has fired up the most trey attempts, averaging 7 a game. The rest of the front court is rather non descript. Sasha Borovnjak and Jonathan Graham are better rebounders on the offensive glass, which is an interesting stat, but perhaps more telling of the Nittany Lions overall shooting woes. Freshman Ross Travis may be the best rebounder of the group as he has a nose for the ball.

The Nittany Lions may be 3-0, but this is a very young, small, and not very good team. And the stats tell the true story. After three games of very soft cupcake opponents, a good team would be padding their stats and have some pretty gaudy numbers. Not so for Penn State. Penn State comes into this game as the 139th best rebounding team, and ranking 159th in the country in assists per game. It gets worse. Penn State is also 183rd in scoring and a shockingly bad 232nd in shooting percentage. And that is against a team nowhere close to the 2nd ranked Wildcats. Not to be Captain Obvious, but Penn State is made up mostly of two and three star players and with a brand new head coach do not have the talent or the chemistry to make this game remotely interesting.  It may be rough for the first half as Chambers will have to deploy a slow down attack to keep his young charges in the game, but the bigger, more athletic Wildcas will soon break the game open.   Look for Kentucky to roll 87-53.