And he's not even from Philadelphia.

It's safe to say the state of Penn State basketball is, well shitty. Currently they're ninth in the Big Ten (Illinois and Northwestern really have it bad) and have a 12-14 record overall. Their top scorer and rebounder, Geary Claxton is done for his career, and there doesn't look like any upside for next year. So what's the problem? How about not pulling in top in-state talent.

I'll admit, I'm a little Philadelphia-centric, and I'm sure there are other quality basketball recruits from other areas of PA (besides Terrelle Pryor), but I think the Philadelphia Inquirer's list of the top 50 high school basketball players in the Philadelphia region gives us a good example of what's wrong with the Penn State basketball program's recruitment.

Not all of the Inquirer's top 50 players have chosen where they plan on attending college, and in fact so of them don't even have a list of choices - part of that is because some of them are only sophomores in high school (which is really ridiculous). But of the ones that have lists, Penn State only appears twice - on the lists of Jesse Morgan (Prep Charter) and Jake Cohen (Conestoga) both juniors.

When I've talked to people in the past about why Penn State can't recruit top basketball talent, the argument is usually, "those players don't want to come to the middle of Pennsylvania." Now, what these people really mean is "black players, from the inner-city, don't want to come here," which is just stupid. First of all, the university is able to recruit players from all walks of life to come here for football because Penn State has a reputation for a strong football program. If you build a strong basketball program, it won't matter where the recruits are from, they'll be willing come here.

Now look, I understand Penn State has zero shot of getting any of the top five or 10 players in the city. Tyreke Evans is the #1 basketball recruit in the country, and he's going to go somewhere like Memphis or Villanova for one year and then straight to the NBA. But let's at least get out there and talk to the other 40 players. I understand that we'll be competing with Temple, Villanova, St. Joe's, LaSalle, Drexel, Penn and Pitt, but how are we going to build a program without getting some top talent in here? This year showed that when you have one one top tier player, the team is limited to how far he can go.

Or we can just give a scholarship to another guy from Finland. Either or.

P.S. - I know we got that guy transfering from Villanova for next season...that's a start.