Penn State Basketball: 4-star Carey Booth adds to revamped future frontcourt

Penn State Basketball lands four-star power forward Carey Booth to the 2023 recruiting class. What kind of impact will he have long-term?

Carey Booth is a consensus four-star prospect in the 2023 recruiting class, with 247sportsComposite having him in the top 100 overall. He’s a 6’9 and 190-pound athletic power forward from Brewster Academy out in the Northeast and son of former NBA player and current Denver Nuggets GM, Calvin Booth.

Booth is viewed as a long-term prospect that still has some development on both ends of the court. But he already can shoot the ball from deep, is a capable individual defender, and has the intangibles of someone that will continue to get better. He’s someone coaches have coveted to see if they can lock up his potential.

Turns out that it’ll be Penn State Basketball that gets to see what they can do with Booth. The Big Ten program won out on his recruitment over Stanford, Vanderbilt, Texas, and Ohio State from his final list. Beating out the Buckeyes, who have been dominating the 2023 class overall, was important for the Nittany Lions to prevent them from getting yet another top-100 player.

Booth is the third commit n the 2023 class for Penn State, joining three-star guards, Braeden Shrewsberry and Logan Imes. Penn State needed to get another frontcourt player to bolster up the depth for the future. They do have a pair of incoming freshmen in Kebba Njie and Demetrius Lilley, as well as a couple of five-year transfer forwards in Mikey Henn and Andrew Funk.

Considering that both Njie and Lilley both probably are best as centers, that would mean that there wouldn’t be a true power forward on the 2023-24 roster, all due respect to undersized forward Seth Lundy who could stay around for a 5th-year if he wanted to. Booth solves that question and puts himself in a position to potentially get playing time early on.

With the current recruiting arms race that is going on in the Big Ten, it’s a good day for Penn State to get a top-100 talent. Whether Booth has an impact early or later on in his college career, he’s a solid pickup for the program.