Although it’s the thick of football season, Pat Chambers and Penn State men’s basketball are already looking forward to the 2019-20 season. Chambers was joined by Lamar Stevens and John Harrar on October 2 at the Big Ten’s annual basketball media day.

There’s a suspicious amount of optimism for Penn State hoops heading into the season thanks to All-Big Ten forward Lamar Stevens returning to the team for his senior season, and national reporter Andy Katz has high hopes for the Nittany Lions with a projected NCAA tournament appearance.

Chambers claims that there’s solid reasoning for this optimism. This is a team has plenty of experience together and as a result, has developed plenty of consistency, something Chambers said is key to building a tournament team.

A consistent showing would be a much-needed relief from the streaky-at-best performance of last year’s team. In 2018-19, the Nittany Lions started 0-10 in Big Ten play, including an eight-game losing streak during the month of January.

“We are experienced,” Chambers said. “We’re a little bit older now, which is great. We learned from last year, from all those great shared experiences.”

These “shared experiences” coming from players such as senior Lamar Stevens, sophomore John Harrar, redshirt junior Mike Watkins, and sophomore Jamari Wheeler will improve the team’s chemistry heading into this season. Although two of these players are underclassmen, they’ve played together a lot already, which will bode well for the future of the team.

The overall performance of last year’s team was disappointing, but the development and growth of the team is something to be excited about for Penn State fans. Albeit too late, the Nittany Lions became one of the hottest teams in the Big Ten as the season wound done.

Chambers hopes to carry the momentum from that hot streak into this season. And if everything goes according to plan, this will be the team’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2011 and certainly bring a sigh of relief.

“We need to ride that momentum too, from February, March, into this year,” Chambers said. “But I feel really good with Lamar coming back, Mike Watkins, John Harrar, Jamari Wheeler.”