Penn State basketball sees boost with Jalen Pickett return: Notes

In the wake of a disappointing, 69-61 loss to Purdue in the quarterfinal of the Big Ten Tournament, Penn State basketball received great news. Transfer guard Jalen Pickett, having played his fourth season of college ball with the Nittany Lions, decided to exercise his bonus season of NCAA eligibility for the 2022-23 campaign.

The move was significant for Micah Shrewsberry and the Penn State men’s basketball program for a variety of reasons. 

The most obvious is the black-and-white reality of Pickett’s impact by the end of his first season with the Nittany Lions. His 13.3 points per game in 31 showings led the team with an efficient 161 of 383 shooting from the floor. Add 47 3-pointers to the docket, third-most on the team, and his offensive impact was undeniable.

The other end of the floor wasn’t insignificant though, either. Notching 115 defensive rebounds, Pickett finished behind only John Harrar (207) and Seth Lundy (121) in the category. Pickett also generated a team-high 35 steals and, maybe most surprisingly, fell just one shy of Lundy’s 20 with 19 shot blocks.

Returning as an integral piece of core veterans that will lead Penn State this season, we’re going to start our notebook with an off-season look at Pickett and what’s next for him. 

Penn State basketball news and notes

1) Time to adjust

The curiosity about Pickett’s performance last season is that it started so inconsistently. 

Maybe it was a given considering his transfer from Siena and the upgraded talent with Penn State’s opponents. But as a first-team All-MAAC pick who’d posted 15.0 points per game over his three prior seasons, Pickett was expected to deliver more than the 20 combined points he posted against Youngstown St., Massachusetts, and St. Francis Brooklyn to open the year. 

Gradually, though, Pickett’s game shone through. Flashing with a 23-point effort against Ohio State in December to follow a lowlight 4-point performance against Miami, Pickett set the table for a Big Ten season of consistency. 

Only twice against conference opponents did Pickett put up single-digit scoring. And, by the Big Ten Tournament, Pickett hit his stride with 22, 16, and 16 on consecutive nights. 

The background here is that Pickett’s adjustment period involved getting comfortable with Shrewsberry, the system Penn State wanted to run, and the opposition. But as the season progressed, his strengths lifted the program throughout. 

That meant making everyone around him better. An unselfish player with multi-faceted talent, vision, leadership, and poise are the types of characteristics you can have success building around.

And now, he’s going to be counted upon to do it again, even better than the last time. 

Specific to Pickett this offseason, that has translated into a focus on improving his shooting percentage. At 42.0 percent for the season, it’s better than his 40.3 as a junior at Siena but down from his 43.9 percent clip through his career there. The same is true, and especially so, of Pickett’s 3-point shooting. Connecting on only 32.0 percent of his shots from beyond the arc, Pickett will be looked upon to average at least one more made 3-pointer per game this season to more closely align with his career 36.0 clip from deep. 

One other point of emphasis that could help his overall shooting percentage will be his work posting up as a bigger, 6-foot-4 guard. An addition to his game later in the season, it was an effective tool for Pickett that Penn State hopes to see grow this season. 

Said to consistently make progress in areas he’s tasked with improving, Penn State is counting on Pickett to do exactly that this summer. 

2) Advance scout

The June commitment of Kanye Clary last summer wasn’t met with a ton of fanfare. A three-star prospect, the Massanutten Academy point guard was the first to commit to Micah Shrewsberry, choosing Penn State over Norfolk State, James Madison, Hampton, Old Dominion, and Texas A&M. 

The time since has shifted that perception somewhat though as he prepares to enroll at Penn State this summer.

(Note: Penn State’s five freshmen in the Class of 2022 are set to arrive on June 18th. Returning players and the two transfers, Cam Wynter and Andrew Funk, are set to arrive on June 11.)

Establishing himself as a crafty, gritty point guard who creates for teammates and himself, Clary’s future as a Nittany Lion has a blueprint. 

So much so that, when evaluating the National Prep School Championships in March, On3 national hoops analyst Jamie Shaw described Clary thusly:

“Clary is such a smooth and fluid guard. He is an aggressive scorer, able to get to his spots in the half-court, and score from all three levels. He went for 27 in today’s game; it was an array of crafty finishes in the mid-range. Clary has a strong frame, and he has a fearless style on the ball.”

But, at 5-foot-11, 180 pounds, the path to the hardwood for Clary is going to be mostly about defensive intensity. A litmus test for his collegiate preparedness is going to be whether or not Clary can take to becoming a complete pest on that end of the floor. If he can make life miserable for opposing guards, many of whom will be considerably taller than him, Clary will have an opportunity to match the rep that put him on Jamie Shaw’s National Prep Schools Championship first-team in March.  

3) Penn State core areas for improvement

We talked in our first summer hoops notebook about this being an “older, faster” Penn State team ahead of the 2022-23 season.

No doubt, with or without the currently absent power forward yet-to-be-filed through the transfer portal, the foundation built during the 2021-22 season has led to an offseason with optimism ahead of next year. But that comes attached with expectations of improvements needed for the core group of returning players including Seth Lundy, Jalen Pickett, Dallion Johnson, and Myles Dread. 

– For Seth Lundy, those areas won’t come as much of a surprise. His 63 turnovers were second only to Sam Sessoms’ 69. And at 34.8 percent from three, his 184 attempts were a team-high but fourth in efficiency. Establishing himself as a defender capable of excellence this past season, his buy-in on that end of the floor, with improved 3-point shooting and fewer turnovers, particularly off the dribble, is the next big step for Lundy.

– Jalen Pickett’s goals are going to be largely the same. His 55 turnovers weren’t egregious, finishing third behind Sessoms and Lundy. And with his 4.4 assists per game, against 1.8 turnovers per game, his +2.6 assist-to-turnover ratio finished second in the Big Ten behind only Sasha Stefanovic. Still, the expectation is that he can reduce that turnover number next season. And, at 1.5 3-point makes per game, those connections need to be higher for Pickett next season as well with an improvement on his 32.0 percent make rate. 

– Dallion Johnson didn’t get to play as a true freshman and, through the course of his second year on campus, took strides that led him into a starting role. Much of that had to do with his shooting, his 36.5 percent from deep finishing third only to Myles Dread and Lundy. 

The flip side is that Johnson became a point of attack for opponents on the other end of the floor. His quickness is already established off the dribble, but it needs to translate to better performances on the defensive side.

– Myles Dread played with a torn labrum on his shooting arm through the 2021-22 season. He had surgery after the season and now provides periodic updates on his rehabilitation via his social media channels, indicating weight loss as part of the process. That weight loss, and keeping it off, is going to be a major point of emphasis for Dread this offseason.