While men’s basketball has never been a strong suit in State College, there have been a handful of Penn State players over the years who have made an immense impact on the sport at large during their time at the university.
It is a group that excited Penn State basketball fans and brought interest in the team for PA sportsbooks.
The list of hardwood luminaries that hail from Penn State include Jalen Pickett, who was a first- team All-Big Ten member in 2023 on a Nittany Lions squad that reached the Big Dance for the first time in a dozen years.
Throw in others - like Josh Reaves, Seth Lundy, Lamar Stevens and Mike Watkins - and you have a full perspective on the men’s basketball talent that’s come through State College over the last decade.
PennStakes.com – your source for PA online casinos – used Sports-Reference.com to develop the Penn State men’s basketball team of the past decade from 2014-15 to 2023-24. The players included had to have played for the Nittany Lions during this period and it is based on combination of Player Efficiency Rating (PER) and Win Shares.
Penn State Men’s Basketball Team of Last Decade: 2014-2024
Meet the All-Decade Team
Penn State, under first-year coach Mike Rhoades, finished 16-17. One of those losses came to Purdue, which is +200 at Caesars Sportsbook PA to win the Final Four. UConn (at -195) is the favorite.
The Penn State squad we built includes Pickett, who started his career at Siena from 2018 to 2021 before transferring to State College and playing for Penn State from 2021 to 2023. He collected three first-team All-MAAC honors before finishing his NCAA run with the All-Big Team nod in 2023. Pickett is Penn State’s all-time leader in offensive win shares, at 5.5, beating out Talor Battle (4.6 WS) and Jarrett Stephens (4.1 WS).
Reaves averaged 8.9 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game in 121 games with the Nittany Lions between 2015 and 2019. Reaves’ combined PER & WS total of 27.8 finished just behind Pickett’s 33.2 figure.
Forwards Seth Lundy (27.0 PER + WS) and Lamar Stevens (32.3 PER + WS) and center Mike Watkins (39.1 PER + WS) rounded out the list in State College.
Of the five, Pickett and Lundy played key roles in Penn State’s 2023 NCAA Tournament team, helping guide the Nittany Lions into the Field of 68 for the first time since 2011, where they won the program’s first game in the tourney since 2001.
If you are looking to place a wager on any of Penn State’s teams, make sure you are armed with a PA sportsbook promo code.
USA Today photo by Joseph Maiorana
