Stevens, Nittany Lions Searching for Spark with Big Ten Tournament Up Next
Before leaving Northwestern’s Welsh-Ryan Arena Saturday afternoon following an 80-69 loss, Penn State head coach Patrick Chambers was asked about his star senior forward, Lamar Stevens.
Finishing the game with a team-high 18 points and eight rebounds in a team-high 37 minutes, Stevens’ totals were to be expected. The performance that produced them, though, was not.
Scoring eight points with the game well out of hand with fewer than five minutes to play, Stevens connected on just 5 of 20 shots from the floor, went 2 of 7 from beyond-the-arc, and did little in the way of assists (1), blocks (0), or steals (0).
Quickly coming to Stevens’ defense, Chambers worked to explain the gravity of the accomplishments his star senior forward had already achieved in his final season with the program, let alone those made throughout his four-year career.
“He's put this program on his back for four years, not just this year, for four years. He's won a heck of a lot of games for us, and he wants it so bad that sometimes I think you press a little bit. So I think he's been pressing over the last couple of weeks,” Chambers said. “Hopefully he can relax now. The season's over. He's done a great job for us. He's going to go down as the all-time scoring leader eventually here. And we won a heck of a lot of games. The last three years we won the most Big Ten games in a three-year span. Lamar Stevens has a lot to do with that. So I hope he doesn't hang his head.
“Think about what Lamar Stevens has done, so you can understand if he's a little tired at the end of the 20-game Big Ten season.”
Given some rest Sunday before returning to practice Monday, the Nittany Lions are counting on that fatigue being short-lived.
Meeting with the local media Monday afternoon for the first time in a month, Stevens, flanked by teammates John Harrar and Jamari Wheeler, and Penn State head coach Patrick Chambers, both insisted that a team-wide spark of energy had returned.
“I think we're good,” Stevens said, acknowledging the grueling nature of the conference schedule. “I feel like everybody is a little tired, playing in the Big Ten, but we're good now. I think we're ready to go with it. The entire team coaching staff is excited for the postseason.”
In part, Chambers suggested, some of Stevens’ most recent performances have been self-induced.
Though his 29-point effort in a 68-60 loss at Indiana and a 20-point outing on 7 of 15 shooting in a loss at Iowa proved exceptions, Stevens’ efficiency in Penn State’s 1-5 stretch to close out the regular season took a considerable dip from his previous 25 outings. In four other games, losses to Illinois, Michigan State and Northwestern, and a win against Rutgers, Stevens connected on just 15 of 63 field-goal attempts (23.8 percent). Nearly as troubling, his bread-and-butter shots closer to the basket went down only 12 of 48 times.
“He's putting a lot of pressure on himself. This kid wants to win. He wants to win. He wanted to win the Big Ten. He put pressure on himself,” Chambers said. “And when you do that sometimes, as you know, you choke the golf club, you're gonna duck hook one. When you're over that six to eight-inch putt and your knees are shaking, you're missing that putt, that point-blank putt. So he's missed some point-blank layups.
“It could be fatigue, it could be mental fatigue, it could be because he just wants it so darn bad for this program and this university.”
Now just nine points shy of taking sole possession of Penn State’s all-time scoring record from Talor Battle, Stevens admitted his desire to see the season-long storyline to take a back seat to bigger, more important goals.
“Yes, I definitely want to get it over with. I want to just focus on my guys, the guys to the left and right of me,” Stevens said. “The scoring record, I've said it so many times, the scoring record is cool, but right now I'm focused on championships and winning each game.”
The Nittany Lions’ next opportunity will come Thursday in the second round of the Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis.
Set to meet the winner of the 11/14 game between Indiana and Nebraska, the 6-seed Nittany Lions are determined to shed their recent struggles in favor of the postseason success they’ve long sought. Counting on Stevens’ return to the standard that cemented a second-straight first-team All-Big Ten season this year, they plan to do exactly that.
“Lamar looked weary. He looked tired. He didn't look tired today, though,” Chambers said. “He looks like he's got his energy back. He’s at least got his jump back. He looks good, he’s very vocal, so I see a lot of positive signs.
“It's March, the best time of year. Let's have some fun.”
Notes:
- Absent Penn State’s trip to Northwestern due to an unspecified violation of team rules, Nittany Lion fifth-year senior center Mike Watkins’ availability remains unclear for this week’s Big Ten tournament.
“Day to day,” Chambers said. “Yeah, timing stinks, but as you know, I have been saying this for years, and I stuck to it, and you guys hate the answer, but it's day to day. Everything's day to day with mental health. And we just gotta make sure we take care of him as a human being versus a basketball player or do it holistically, you know, let's make sure we get him right, and then on the court, maybe he can help us.
“But right now, day to day, he had a good day today, he's gotta continue to put good days together. Look, from my perspective this year, he's had more really good days than bad days. He's had really, really good days, mostly for his senior year, so I'm encouraged. And usually when something like this happens, he's even better as he comes through.”
In 30 games, including 17 starts, Watkins averaged 9.7 points and a team-high 7.6 rebounds per outing.
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