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Smeltzer: Penn State Fans, Enjoy Pickett While you Can

Penn State Nittany Lions guard Jalen Pickett (22) January 21, 2023 David Hague/NSN

The No. 1 focus for Penn State basketball and its fans is whether or not the team will make the NCAA Tournament.

This has been the main goal all season, and has ramped up over the past month, which feels much longer.

For teams on the bubble, every day must feel like a year, and Penn State has been on the bubble for what feels like forever.

In the past week, dramatic wins at Northwestern and against Maryland at the Bryce Jordan Center have put Penn State on the right side of the bubble. Some feel that Penn State is already in the NCAA Tournament regardless of what happens in Thursdayโ€™s Big Ten Tournament opener against Illinois in Chicago.

For Penn State fans, this season has been wild. Itโ€™s the type of year that doesnโ€™t happen much for Penn State basketball. The type of year the team and its fans donโ€™t want to end.

But it has to end, and perhaps the saddest part about the seasonโ€™s inevitable conclusion is that it will meanย Jalen Pickett will never play for Penn State again.

I wonโ€™t go into too much detail about Pickettโ€™s stats. If youโ€™re a Penn State fan and arenโ€™t familiar, thatโ€™s your problem. Pickett being Penn Stateโ€™s first All-American since the Eisenhower administration speaks for itself.

The point of this column isnโ€™t to break down Pickettโ€™s stats or compare him to other great Penn State players.

The former has been discussed ad nausem and will continue to be talked about for at least another week. The latter has been talked about to a lesser extent and can be saved for another piece.

The purpose of this column is to implore Penn State fans to appreciate what they have with ย Pickett.

People havenโ€™t had much time to do that in general, and although every day in early March feels like a year for a bubble team, Pickettโ€™s time as a Penn State player is running out. Over this season, his star has burned as bright as any in school history and brighter than most.

One of the beautiful aspects of Pickettโ€™s season is that the man has produced not just great stats but memorable individual games. In early November, when most Penn State fans were still focused on football, Pickett posted the second triple-double in school history against Butler. In February, when more people were paying attention to Penn State basketball but bummed out over a three-game losing streak that made NCAA Tournament prospects dim at best, Pickett had one of the best games in school history, putting up 41 points and eight assists.

Those numbers donโ€™t need context, but to add some anyway, no Penn State player had scored 40 or more points in a game since John F. Kennedy was president.

So, yeah, it was a good night.

And to say itโ€™s been a good career for Pickett would be an understatement, and Penn State fans wish they could have experienced it for more than two seasons.

One of the only downsides of Pickettโ€™s college run from a Penn State perspective is that he spent more of it playing somewhere else.

Pickett played three of his soon-to-be-five college seasons at Siena, so that already cut into fansโ€™ time to appreciate the man. Last season, Pickettโ€™s first at Penn State, he was a good player, averaging ย 13.3 points per game. But the team lost more than it won, and there wasnโ€™t much about Pickettโ€™s year that indicated that heโ€™d become one of the best in Penn State history.

By the time we realized that, yes, Pickett was โ€œHIM,โ€ as the kids say, his Penn State run was months away from being done.

Thatโ€™s a sad reality of modern college basketball.

We can debate the transfer portal somewhere else, but one of the undisputed aspects of it is that the more teams utilize the portal to reel in veterans, the less time fans have to fall in love with specific players, and thatโ€™s what happened with Pickett at Penn State.

Here today, gone tomorrow.

Pickett isnโ€™t the only example of that on this team.

Soon, a fellow fifth-year senior, Cam Wynter, will be moving on. Wynter has hit the two biggest shots of Penn Stateโ€™s seasonโ€” last-second baskets at Northwestern and on Senior Day against Marylandโ€” but his time at Penn State will amount to one year. Bucknell transfer Andrew Funkย has also excited Penn State fans, doing so mainly with his 3-point shooting. Again, one year.

There are Penn State players that have spent their entire careers in State College, such as veterans Seth Lundyย and Myles Dread, both of whom were recognized before Sundayโ€™s game. But players like that are more rare than they used to be.

Players as good as Pickett have always been rare.

Whether itโ€™s this year or not, Penn State will back in the NCAA Tournament one day. It might take awhileโ€” Penn State hasnโ€™t made it in almost 12 yearsโ€” but it will happen.

And Penn State could well have a player like Pickett again. But donโ€™t bank on it happening soon.

So although itโ€™s perfectly natural for fans to be stressed about what might or might not happen over the next several days, they shouldnโ€™t forget to enjoy this team, and, specifically, Pickett.

There will be other Penn State teams in the years ahead. But Pickett is going to be gone soon. So enjoy him while you can.

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