Busting Brackets
Fansided

Penn State Basketball: Penn State Nittany Lions 2015-16 Season Preview

By James Fitzgerald

facebooktwitterreddit

Penn State Nittany Lions

2014-2015 Record: 18-16 (4-14, Big Ten)
Postseason: None

More from Big Ten

This is going to be a very interesting season for Patrick Chambers who will be in his fifth season as head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions.

Last year Penn State made a late season Big Ten Tournament run and came within six points of making the semifinals.

Though the Nittany Lions had some late season success, it is going to be hard to build on it with the loss of four players to the roster, including All-Big Ten guard and leading scorer D.J. Newbill who averaged 20.7 points per contest for Penn State.

Newbill ended his Penn State career as the fourth leading scorer in school history though he only played three seasons for the school.

Penn State will go forward into the 2015-16 season with a new starting lineup which should translate into some early difficulties for the club this season.

Newcomers

G – Josh Reaves (Oak Hill Academy/Fairfax, VA)
F – Mike Watkins (Phelps School/Philadelphia, PA)
G – Isaiah Washington (Redshirt 2014-15/Williamsport, PA)
F – Deividas Zemgulis (St. Mary Ryken [MD]/Kaunas, Lithuania)

Key Non-Conference Games

Dec. 2 at Boston College – Penn State will be participating in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge against a Boston College team that is going to be in a similar boat as them.

These teams are similar because both teams are going to be rebuilding after losing a major offensive contributor (Boston College lost leading scorer and All-ACC performer Olivier Hanlan), and both teams are not expected to do much in their conference.

This matchup is still good for Penn State because it will give them some early exposure in a televised event.

Dec. 8 at George Washington – The Colonials are viewed as a possible NIT Tournament team and should be formidable competition for the Nittany Lions. GW won 22 games last season and have lost two players from that team.

However, they return three seniors who were solid contributors last year, so this is going to be a challenging road test for Penn State.

Key Players

Shep Garner – The 6-foot-1 point guard started 33 of 34 games as a freshman and played pretty decently averaging 9.2 points per contest. He is going to need to be more efficient in order to have more of an impact for the Nittany Lions this season after shooting 36.4% from the field and 33.7% from three-point range.

He is going to be the starting point guard so he is going to need to find a balance between setting the table and getting points rather quickly in order to lead this team.

Brandon Taylor – This is the player that Patrick Chambers will be counting on to bring senior leadership and take a huge leap in scoring. He is a 6-foot-6 wing player that averaged 26 minutes per contest and started in 25 of 33 games for Penn State last season.

He averaged 9.1 points while shooting 37.1% from the field and 33.5% from three-point range.

The Nittany Lions are going to need him to up his production a whole lot this upcoming season.

Live Feed

Nebraska football suddenly a member of the new Big 18
Nebraska football suddenly a member of the new Big 18 /

Husker Corner

  • Big Ten conference officially on the expansion hunt againHusker Corner
  • Nebraska football not getting any new conference mates anytime soonHusker Corner
  • Nebraska Basketball: Jamison Battle would be an X-factor type transferHusker Corner
  • Nebraska Basketball: Fred Hoiberg named amongst most overpaid coachesHusker Corner
  • Penn State vs. Illinois prediction and odds for Big Ten Tournament second roundFanSided

    • Season Outlook

    If you are looking for the Penn State Nittany Lions to get out of the Big Ten cellar this season you are not going to see it.

    They lost too much production from last seasons’ team and the learning curve is simply too great for this team to actually make their way into the top half of the conference.

    It is too hard to tell if this is going to have any effect on Patrick Chambers’ job status this season though he should have built some good will with the way his team performed in the Big Ten Tournament last season.

    In the end, Penn State has nice talent, but not enough to break into NCAA Tournament contention this year.

    Next: Big Ten Season Preview

    More from Busting Brackets

    Home/Big Ten