Column: Burying missed chance, Stevens determined to make decision count

Lamar Stevens couldn’t decide.

Close out his collegiate career with a final season at Penn State, or, make the jump into the NBA’s unknown waters?

The choice wasn’t as easy as it might have appeared to the outside.

Long dreaming of playing basketball professionally, the latter was more than a little tempting, regardless of projections. Working out individually for six teams, Stevens spent the past seven weeks envisioning his place at the next level and the ways he’s capable of impacting the game.

The feedback he received from NBA personnel through the process left some unequivocal areas still needing polish in his game, though. “It was pretty consistent feedback, which is I just gotta work on my shot, get it a little bit more consistent,” said Stevens. “And then they think that I'll be there, or close to there.”

Knocking down 42.2 percent of his shots from the floor last season, Stevens finished second in scoring in the Big Ten with 19.9 points per game to go along with his 7.7 rebounds in 36.9 minutes. An area of intense concentration last offseason, however, Stevens struggled from deep, hitting just 20 of 91 3-point attempts on the year for a 22.0 percent rate.

Even so, Stevens heard enough positives about his own versatility on both ends of the floor to keep the NBA route viable.

Returning to Penn State provided no certainty, either.

For as much as Stevens believed in his teammates and the coaches around him, opening up possibilities to truly make a mark on the program’s history individually and as a team, the Nittany Lions’ most recent history has obviously lingered.

Boiling down his decision to wanting to finish what he started with the program upon initially taking a chance on Penn State as a heralded recruit out of Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic High, Stevens also noted his displeasure with the 2018-19 campaign.

“Last year, I'm leaving in the past,” said Stevens. “I feel like we should have done much better. I should have done much better individually.”

The facts back up the assertion.

Missing Mike Watkins for the first five games to a suspension while breaking in a pair of true freshman guards, the Nittany Lions got off to a 3-2 start with losses to DePaul and Bradley. Back-to-back losses to begin Big Ten play in December, then, left the team at 4-4, foreshadowing what was to come. Eventually running up an 0-10 start to conference play, Penn State bounced back to close with seven wins in its last 10 games of the regular season, but an early exit in the Big Ten Tournament prevented any possible postseason play.

Especially disappointing in the wake of the program’s NIT championship the year prior, Stevens has decided to turn his attention toward making right what so obviously went wrong a year ago.

“I think we've all grown from last year,” said Stevens. “We put it in the past and we're just excited for the new opportunities we're going to have to face this upcoming year.

“If I didn't love this school, love my coaching staff, love my teammates, there was no chance that I would have come back to school. But I do. I have a strong belief in everybody in the Penn State men's basketball program. So what I said my freshman year coming into Penn State to shift the culture, it's something I want to stick by.”

Now, Stevens and the Nittany Lions will have that opportunity.

Turning his attention to the work ahead, set to return to campus to join his teammates for Penn State’s academic second summer session, Stevens plans to put the work in to finally see the much-coveted, elusive goal of an NCAA Tournament berth come to fruition.

“I'm just excited to get back to work. We talk about NCAA a lot in the preseason, and now it's just time to put our heads down and put the work in and just get there because we're capable,” he said. “We have every piece that we need.”