Why Firing Pat Chambers Won't Fix Penn State Basketball's Problems

Another year has almost past, and we have another year of fans maligning the state of Penn State Basketball. Amidst all of the frustration, it is very easy to submit to the idea that the program is treading water and that no progress has been made. The overall impatience of the sports world right now drives most fans to looking at wins as the only barometer of progress. With this program, however, we don't have the luxury of only measuring success by wins. The fact of the matter is that building this program will be a long process, with many steps along the road; and to this point, Chambers has facilitated progress.

If we backtrack to Pat Chambers' first team at Penn State, two whole years ago, you begin to understand the state of the program that Chambers inherited. That team was the 290th oldest team in the country. Translation: they were young. When Trey Lewis wasn't hurt, he and Ross Travis both received major minutes as freshman. Cammeron Woodyard, a hard-working senior, was the team's 3rd-leading scorer, and he had never received consistent minutes in his career until that year. At different points in that conference season, walk-ons Nick Colella and Kevin Montminy saw playing time. In 18 Big Ten games, the team lost 11 by double digits. The lone bright spot on that team was obviously Tim Frazier, as he finished the season with 1st-Team All Big Ten honors.

Last year's team, after Frazier went down with a season ending Achilles injury, was even worse than the previous team. It took them 14 games to garner a win in the Big Ten, when they delivered maybe the most shocking upset of the college basketball season against #4 Michigan. They lost 7 games by double digits, including 2 by 23 and one by 29. Several games saw only 6 players get major minutes. Quite simply, that team wasn't even "close."

What is the point in looking back at those teams? Well, simply put, with the current Penn State basketball team, being "close" is not only an improvement, but a marked improvement. This team has the ability to go 10 deep without seeing too significant of a drop-off and has two freshman seeing minutes in the Big Ten and looking solid doing it. Furthermore, this team has seen 7 separate players score double digits on more than one occasion, a number that the last few teams couldn't even touch. Yes, many of those players have struggled to achieve consistency, but if you consider talent to be a measure of what a player is capable of, it's hard to argue that this team doesn't have more talent than it has the last few years.

Another major development during Chamber's reign has been his ability to break into the city of Philadelphia for recruits. Since before I was born, people have been begging for Penn State to draw from places you would expect to be their "natural recruiting environment," like Philadelphia, but they never succeeded. The team that Chambers inherited had 0 players from Philly, and after 2.5 years the team has 4 current players and 2 recruits hailing from the City of Brotherly Love. That is progress, to say the least.

Long story short, Pat Chambers has not gotten the most out of this team. It's overall performance has been underwhelming and even disheartening. He has a lot to learn, specifically regarding late game management. Yet, this does not mean progress has not been made. The team's talent and depth have been upgraded, PSU has finally broken into the Philadelphia area for recruiting, and the team is knocking on the door of winning. At one of the hardest jobs in NCAA Basketball, the idea of scrapping it now and starting over should be beyond consideration.  The only thing that would accomplish is negating what progress has been made and setting the program back another couple of years. Besides, Penn State fans should know better than anyone that a team can go from "close" to "bubble" very quickly, with Penn State's last NCAA tournament appearance coming on the heels of a 3-15 Big Ten season in which the Lions lost nearly every game by single digits, much like this year. In a program that will take much longer than 2.75 years to turn around for the long run, it doesn't make sense to set that process back another couple of years by firing the coach.

Penn State basketball is currently an exercise in futility and frustration, but the program is in fact showing improvement. So, Penn State fans, try utilizing patience with this program, because this time it just might pay off.

Oh, and maybe show up for a game or two. That might help.