Sunday Column: Pickett’s Charge Could Have Repercussions Beyond This Season for Penn State

I didn’t see an All-American the first time I saw Jalen Pickett play.

It was one of the earlier games of the 2021-22 season, a sleepy November weeknight affair against a winless St. Francis Brooklyn squad. Pickett was 1-of-7 from the field and finished with four points, one board and three assists in 32 minutes. But it wasn’t the skimpy stat line that bothered me. It was his slow, deliberate approach; a lot of dribbles without a lot of movement toward the basket. I figured he was another small-conference transfer who was going to have trouble adjusting to the speed and length of Big Ten defenses.

A year and a half later, that same player is the hottest, arguably most unguardable player (not named Zach Edey) in the conference, and he’s dragging a team without a lot of other reliable options on offense and a less-than-lockdown defense toward an NCAA Tournament berth.

In retrospect, I should have looked closer at Pickett. Should have seen that those deliberate dribbles were his way of feeling out a defense, of taking the extra beat to see how the defense was playing both him and his teammates. I should have looked not just at his statistics at Siena but how he proved himself at every previous level he had played dating back to his days as a youngster in Rochester, N.Y. I should have talked to teammates and learned how he found opportunities to put in extra work in the film room and on the practice floor, how he self-scouted to seek out and correct weaknesses in his own game.

But putting in work and seeing the whole floor doesn’t explain the entire transformation we’ve seen from Pickett over the past year. This is a run that even Pickett probably never dreamed of. He’s been superb all season and otherworldly during the last couple of weeks, when each game has taken on almost a playoff feel considering the hole the Nittany Lions dug for themselves during the four-game slide prior to that. A three-level scorer who not only facilitates the Penn State offense but, as he was while scoring his team’s final 14 points in Thursday’s win at Ohio State, often IS the Penn State offense, Pickett has been able to produce, and produce on a grand scale, even while receiving the bulk of attention from every defense he’s faced. His genius is that he makes the simple play; when he gets a one-on-one against a guard, he’ll back him into the post and get a layup. If he’s matched on a big, he’ll blow past him or hit him with a step-back. If he gets doubled, he’ll find an open teammate. He plays within himself, and he does so within the framework of Micah Shrewsberry’s system.

The bad news for Penn State is that Pickett, who turned 23 in October, is running out of games in a Nittany Lion uniform. The good news is that he is doing as much for the future of Penn State basketball as any recent player has.

If you’re a college basketball player mulling a transfer and you’re watching what Pickett is doing right now, you’re thinking, “I wonder what Shrewsberry could do for me?” If you’re a high school prospect seeing a Nittany Lion claim national player of the week honors, you might be giving Penn State more consideration than you had a month ago. If you’re a current Penn State player with remaining eligibility, you’re familiar with the hard work that Pickett puts in to not only play 36 minutes per night at a high level but to understand what the opponent is doing better than anyone but its coaches and then figure out the best way to dismantle it.

On a nightly basis, Penn State puts together at least one or two set pieces that are executed perfectly (Pickett is often heavily involved), a sign not only that the players are well-coached but that Shrewsberry has the skills to truly cook in this league if only he were to add a few more, um, fresh ingredients. With each win and each highlight, Pickett is pulling college basketball’s finicky spotlight a little closer toward the job Shrewsberry is doing in a place that has not often had a surplus of wins or highlights.

By his own admission, it took Shrewsberry some time to unlock the version of Pickett we’re seeing on the floor today, but unlock him he has, and though you have to give Pickett himself 95% of the credit for this monster month within the monster year he’s having, Shrewsberry and his staff get the other 5%. And that other 5% could go a long way in helping future would-be All-Americans — or maybe just a few more transfers who no one saw coming — decide to see if Shrews can do for them what he’s done for Pickett.