Good news on the basketball front, Mike Watkins will return
- Thread starter Chris92
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Excellent news. I know everyone wants Mike to get back to full health and have a stellar Senior season along with graduating. Hopefully they can find some medicine that doesn't continue to cause him problems with stamina.
I want to see him in a cap and gown more than I want to see him in a PSU basketball uniform. I think seeing him graduate would be a great story.
Honestly, I think Mike coming back is the best path he could take. Hopefully, have a good, injury free productive year and see where the chips fall. At least he'll have his degree, which is the most important thing.
Good news. Mike, over the summer — run a lot of wind sprints and shoot a lot of free throws.
Something is telling me he is going to be very motivated this summer/fall, and he is going to have a big senior year. If Lamar comes back, I really think this team could be special next year!
Stevens will likely be on the team this year. Brockington and Dread should both average double digits and Lundy will be good off the bench.
This should be a tourney team if they stay healthy.
you know, the crazy thing is if Stevens returns and McCoy and Bolton don't leave, that is a pretty good line-up that PSU puts on the floor. Can go 10 deep, have some experience on the first team. 2nd team has a lot of young athletes.
1st team - Wheeler, Dread, Brockington, Steven, Watkins
2nd team - Bolton,Jones, Lundy, McCoy, Harrar
1st team - Wheeler, Dread, Brockington, Steven, Watkins
2nd team - Bolton,Jones, Lundy, McCoy, Harrar
I am happy for him more than I am for us and potentially having a better team. Study hard Mr. Watkins and work on conditioning during your study breaks. Best of luck young man!
Hey Hey Hey.....everyone who has a positive thought about PSU Basketball, just stop. That kind of talk has no place here. Soon the Pat haters will require a safe space from this kind of hate speech.
That would be great but what makes you think that? He could play professionally in Europe, if not drafted in the NBA.
Intuition and gut, mostly, along with reading between the lines from those more plugged in than I am. I expect him to return and I’d expect some kind of official announcement from the school pretty soon.
Mike is staying for last year.
http://www.statecollege.com/news/local-news/penn-state-basketball-watkins-set-to-return,1480016/
http://www.statecollege.com/news/local-news/penn-state-basketball-watkins-set-to-return,1480016/
The biggest hesitancy right now is only having 1 PG on the roster next year, especially when that PG plays as hard as Wheeler does. Let's see if any points are still out there for that final ship. I believe that one was released from his LOI at Texas A&m when the coach was fired. Do work, Pat. A frosh guard can be fully capable of giving solid minutes as a #2 point in the B10. You don't need a 4* or 5* for that.
The chance of Stevens coming back was always around 95 or so percent.
The chance of Watkins coming back was around 40 or so percent.
Lamar only (well mostly) declared so he can find out where he stood in regards to the NBA scouts and to find out what he needed to work on in order to be drafted next year. He saw what happened to his friend last year, I doubt he wants the same at least at this point in his career.
Mike coming back is a bit of a shock. Lamar coming back is ... well expected.
Allow
I read that Mike changed his mind just last week. If true, WOW!
Heck, just replays from prior year’s springs, summers and falls when the so-overly-optimistic “this is the year” predictors show up.
They usually start to disappear about 12/1 or so, with the last ones dying out about 1/15.
(But I’d certainly like them to be right and knock it out of the park one of these years!)
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....and Seth Lundy remains a solid commit. I'm sure it's not a coincidence the Roman Catholic brethren have given PSU hoops optimism these past few years. Would love to see Lamar get in the tournament. He's been a great ambassador for PSU hoops.
If Lamar has a year like last year, he’ll pass Talor Battle as Penn State’s all-time leading scorer.
If he has a mediocre/average year (for his standards), he'll pass TB. As long as he can stay healthy, I think that him passing TB is basically a lock/given.
Here's to hoping that Myles 3-point shot is clicking from the get-go and Watkins returns to sophomore season Mike to free up Lamar. Mike and John will be able to play a bit more reckless, knowing that we actually have a 3rd-string 5 next season (Abdou, who I think will be a formidable big by the time he has to take the helm his junior season).
IF those two things happen, Wheeler continues to improve his shooting game (who, otherwise, is a solid PG and defender), and Lundy/Brockington can contribute at the 3, next year COULD be a good year.
Certainly it is not a lock that all of that happens, but if it does, it will be fun.
Oh, I agree. He’s just over 500 points away right now and scored well over 600 last year. If he has a year like his sophomore year, he’ll get it easily; with a year like his junior year he’ll be very comfortably at the top of the list.
Brockington is obviously the big question mark because of the situation that brought him in here, but if the rough comparisons to Reaves’ game end up showing on the court, I’m pretty bullish on what he can bring. I don’t think Wheeler is ever going to be a guy who fills it up with the jumper, but I think he can be an effective distributor who gets points going to the basket and in transition. With Wheeler, Dread, Brockington, Jones, Stevens, Lundy, Watkins, and Harrar we have eight guys who can give us a nice little rotation. If Abdou or McCloskey can give us a little bit here and there, too, it’s a roster that can definitely compete in the B1G. Whether they live up to it (or are coached up to it) remains to be seen.
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