Penn State Basketball: Steps for Nittany Lions to become winning program
By Justin Thind
Step 1: Fire Pat Chambers
This step won’t really require that much elaboration. At this point, people’s feelings on the matter are pretty entrenched one way or the other. If you still don’t believe Chambers should be fired, you probably never will. If you believe Chambers should be fired, then you know all the reasons why and won’t need the convincing. Regardless, let’s go over the case for firing Patrick Chambers after his 8th season in State College.
First and foremost, Penn State will have avoided making the NCAA tournament in every single one of Chambers’ 8 years. That alone would get almost any Power 5 coach fired. Chambers, however, bought himself some more time after opening up that Philly pipeline that ultimately led to last year’s NIT Championship. It started to look like Penn State’s patience paid off once the end of last season unfolded. Then this year happened.
The Nittany Lions have found themselves back at the bottom of the Big Ten and all of that promise from last season is gone. It’s another Pat Chambers-led failure of season where the only tired defense is “maybe he needs more time to develop his players.” Well, he has had eight years and hasn’t done anything but get an NIT championship out of his prized 2016 Philly prospects, a class whose remnants are on the way out after next year.
One might point to the fact that Penn State has competed in almost every game this year, which is definitely true. Penn State has lost seven of their 10 conference games by under ten points. Additionally, five of those losses were by under five points. The counter-point, though, is that maybe it’s time to find a coach that can get over the hump and win those type of games. Chambers’ entire tenure has been plagued by that trend of coming close. It’s time for the school to say that it’s not good enough to keep battling in those games, it is time to start winning them.
Penn State has returned to the cellar of the Big Ten and that one season of promise doesn’t look to be anything more than an anomaly. While fans had hoped that NIT title would’ve been a building block for a new direction, it was quite the opposite.