Penn State focuses on top targets in big evaluation period weekend

The Penn State men’s basketball program’s whirlwind weekend of recruiting evaluation has come to a close. Running Thursday through Sunday afternoon, the Nittany Lion staff of Micah Shrewsberry, Adam Fisher, Mike Farrelly, and Aki Collins was all on the road to take in the program’s top Class of 2023 prospects and targets in the Class of 2024.

Recapping the adidas 3SSB Boys Session III event in Rock Hill, S.C., Under Armour’s Rise Championship in Cartersville, Ga., and Nike’s EYBL Session 4 in Kansas City, Mo., here’s a look at how Penn State’s targets performed.

Class of 2023 Penn State commitments

The first stop of the weekend for Shrewsberry was to South Carolina, where Class of 2023 commitments Braeden Shrewsberry and Logan Imes were both playing with Indiana Elite.

And the results were positive for the pair.

According to multiple reports on site, Shrewsberry had a great weekend shooting the ball. 

Class of 2023 6’3 Penn State Commit Braeden Shrewsberry is putting on a SHOW for Indiana Elite 3SSB. He hit multiple threes, controlling the pace, making great reads, moving without the ball & displaying incredible confidence. @IndianaElite @BraedenShrews @NinaZDallas @adidas3SSB

— Stellar Hoops 🏢 (@StellarHoops) July 9, 2022

In his first game of the session, the rising State College Area HS senior dropped 20 points on 8-of-13 shooting, including a 4-of-8 clip from beyond the arc. He followed it with 16 points (6-of-11, 4-8), and 14 points (5-of-17, 2-12) in subsequent games.

Teammate Logan Imes, meanwhile, dropped 17, 12, and 17 in three games, shooting 60.8 percent from the floor. While Imes wasn’t as prolific as Shrewsberry shooting from the floor, his performances helped lift Indiana Elite to a semifinal appearance in the event where the team ultimately fell in a 76-70 decision to Team Loaded. 

Shrewsberry’s 3.0 made 3-pointers per game through the series of events was good for fifth out of all of the 17u adidas participants. He finished with 20 points, making six triples, in the semifinal loss. 

Uncommitted Class of 2023 Penn State targets

As reported by our On3 colleague, Jamie Shaw, Shrewsberry spent quite a bit of time courtside for Carey Booth’s performances. Shrewsberry was joined at times by Fisher and Farrelly, too. 

Reporting from the weekend had Booth with something of an up-and-down showing. According to Shaw, his matchup with Virginia commit Blake Buchanan had Booth on the losing side. 

From Shaw:

“Booth, the son of former NBA center Calvin Booth, is just booming with upside. While still inconsistent, he did finish with two threes en route to 12 points. Booth moves well, both vertically and laterally. Strength and game reps will be his biggest thing moving forward, but it is easy to see why 25 or more schools have jumped on board.”

Nike EYBL event

At the Nike event, Devin Royal’s All-Ohio club finished with a 3-3 mark, with Royal having something of a back-and-forth weekend himself. He finished his six-game set averaging 13 points per outing with 4.6 rebounds. Royal’s 17.1 ppg average through the summer circuit is 16th.

With Peach Jam to be held next week, All-Ohio has an 11-8 record and is sixth in the C Division standings. The top five teams in each division qualify for Peach Jam automatically with four at-large berths. The field hasn’t yet been announced for the event.

A Penn State target who will be a part of the Peach Jam is Amani Hansberry with Team Durant. 

In his first showing of the weekend, Hansberry posted a double-double (11 points, 15 rebounds) in a win over Mac Irvin Fire. He followed it with 16, 19, 16, 23, and 10-point performances en route to a 5-1 weekend for Team Durant. 

In the process, Hansberry had plenty of attention from coaches, with Shrewsberry and Illinois’ Brad Underwood among the reported most interested parties. Hansberry has taken official visits to Penn State, Virginia Tech, Boston College, and Illinois, and most recently picked up an Auburn offer. 

Eye-popping numbers for Ducharme

Teams that won’t be headed to Peach Jam include Reid Ducharme with BABC (2-4 over the weekend) and DeShawn Harris-Smith with Team Takeover (5-1).

That doesn’t necessarily mean that had bad weekends, though. 

Ducharme posted two of the weekend’s highlight scoring performances. He had 31 points on 10-of-22 shooting from the floor in a 91-87 win over Seattle Rotary on Friday night. Then he followed it immediately after on Saturday morning with a 32-point losing effort to City Rocks. All said Ducharme averaged 19.7 points per game over BABC’s six-game set through the weekend.

Teammate TJ Power, who Penn State was in on relatively early in the recruiting process, also had an explosive weekend. The Nittany Lions are less of a player in his recruitment. But, he posted 33 points Friday and put up 41 against Houston Hoops in a win on Saturday night.

Meanwhile, Harris-Smith had something of a relatively quiet weekend for Team Takeover, though he got stronger Saturday and Sunday. In his last three games, he led all scorers on the team with 18 in the Saturday morning game. He followed it with 19 apiece Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. He picked up an offer from Indiana on Saturday and so far has visited Penn State, Xavier, and Villanova.