Of the many college basketball seniors who’ve watched their careers come to an abrupt amid COVID-19 cancellations this week, Penn State’s Lamar Stevens is one of the most prominent nationally.
The All-Big Ten forward led the Nittany Lions to a 21-10 record this season, which had them poised for their first trip to the NCAA tournament since 2011. And Stevens was just seven points shy of passing Talor Battle to become the program’s leading scorer before his team’s remaining games were nixed Thursday.
Now, suddenly, it’s all over, and Stevens told Jeff Goodman on his eponymous podcast Friday that he’s struggling to come to grips with it.
“My mom sent me a text message, just ‘next chapter,’ ” but I’m not really ready to move on to that yet,” Stevens said. “I’m still envisioning me in that Penn State uniform. I’m still envisioning me having practice tomorrow morning. And I’m just not ready to give that up.”
This is a MUST-listen.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 13, 2020
Lamar Stevens waited four years for this moment, was just seven points shy of becoming Penn State’s all-time leading scorer.
Stevens with raw emotion and also Indiana’s Archie Miller on Sunday after the NCAA tourney was canceled:https://t.co/8jgp7U6Fnx
Stevens announced his return for his senior season last spring to much fanfare, considering he was a viable NBA draft prospect and certainly could have earned a pretty penny by choosing to play professionally overseas.
Instead, he became one of the sport’s best feel-good stories, as his 17.6 points and 6.9 rebounds per game helped Penn State peak at No. 9 in the Associated Press poll. That ranking tied a program record last reached in 1996.
The dream, though, was always getting his first chance to play on the big stage of March Madness. When he and his teammates found out they wouldn’t get to, he told Goodman it crushed many of them.
“At first, I was in shock,” Stevens said of learning the news officially upon the team’s return to State College from the canceled Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis. “We had a meeting in the locker room right after, and I just couldn’t help but like hold back the tears. Just crying, and everybody in there was just crying. Just so emotional. Just hugging each other because we just weren’t ready for it to end.
“It’s one thing to lose on the court, but to not even have the opportunity to play with each other again so abruptly, we weren’t ready for that and it was just and extremely, extremely emotional scene.”
Stevens told Goodman that he wishes the NCAA had conducted a poll of players, asking if they were willing to put off postseason ambitions to play in a tournament postponed until May or June. He said he would have voted yes to playing in it, and at the very least, he wishes the bracket could have been announced so that he could at least see “Penn State” pop up on the screen as the realization of an entire season’s worth of work.
Alas, he and his teammates didn’t get either opportunity, and now they’re set to break up for the season, and in some circumstances, forever. Stevens said he plans to return home to Philadelphia on Saturday. Most of his teammates will leave State College as well, as in-person classes at Penn State have been suspended until at least April 3 because of the pandemic.
In the meantime, Stevens said he’s talked to a sports psychologist for most of the season and will continue to as he attempts to process what’s happened.
“I was really hurt,” he said. “Just being a senior, being a guy who hasn’t made the tournament in the previous three years, knowing that it was coming to reality this year and just not having any control over it ... my heart broke, honestly. I feel like I gave everything to this program and this school to get to that point, and I wanted to experience that with my team, my community, and just have that Penn State community be able to rally around us.”
Adam Bittner: abittner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @fugimaster24.
First Published: March 13, 2020, 4:43 p.m.
