ALTOONA, Pa. -- I feel like I've written this sort of thing a couple of times now over the past year, and it's definitely true this time around.
Penn State football is riding a tremendous wave of momentum, and this week, basketball came along for the ride.
Friday was an especially good day for the Nittany Lion football team, capping a great week. Two wide receiver prospects committed to Penn State in a matter of minutes -- including a Pitt legacy, which probably doesn't sit well in Panther land -- and the Lions added three receivers overall for the week.
• Josiah Brown, the No. 1 prospect in New York, committed to the Lions on Friday. The 6-foot, 170-pounder is a 4-star prospect and No. 20 athlete in the nation, per 247Sports.
• Peter Gonzalez, whose dad Pete played quarterback at Pitt in the 1990s and was a member of the Steelers, also committed to Penn State. That surely had to sting for some Pitt fans, seeing the 3-star prospect from Central Catholic spurn the Panthers for the Lions. Gonzalez is 6-2, 200 pounds who also had offers from West Virginia, Wisconsin, Iowa State, Miami and Virginia Tech.
Earlier in the week, Penn State flipped Oregon commit Tyseer Denmark, the No. 3 prospect in Pennsylvania. The 5-11, 180-pound 4-star receiver from Philadelphia Roman Catholic announced his decision Wednesday.
Three wide receivers in three days. Wow! There's a chance that, when we look back in a few years, these three days will have been a tremendous period for the Penn State football program. That is, of course, if all three prospects pan out.
Lots of things in sports are all about momentum. Recruiting is definitely one of them.
Adding not one, not two, but three receivers made this a sensational week for Penn State. The Lions' now have the No. 6 recruiting class in the nation, per 247Sports, with a total of 18 commits.
One part of all this that's important is that new wide receivers coach Marques Hagans was involved in the recruiting process for all three of these commits. He gets solo credit for Brown and shares credit with Terry Smith for Gonzalez and Denmark.
If you'll recall, when he was hired, I made a pretty big deal of the fact that Hagans did not enjoy much recruiting success at his previous stop, Virginia. For him to fully pull his weight on the very talented Penn State coaching staff, he was going to have to do so not just with on-field coaching, but also in recruiting.
Well, Denmark is the highest-rated recruit of Hagans' career, and this week showed the assistant coach can be a closer in the recruiting process. That's a big plus.
The Penn State program realized it was not in a good place from a wide receiver standpoint, which surely is a big reason why Taylor Stubblefield was fired and replaced by Hagans. The program can attract a prized QB such as Drew Allar, but if you can't get big-time wide receiver recruits -- something Ohio State has done exceptionally well -- then ultimately you could have a problem trying to beat the likes of the Buckeyes or Michigan.
Getting back to the overall momentum discussion, this has been a terrific offseason for the Nittany Lions, and they hope to ride it to a terrific regular season this fall. Since going 11-2 and winning the Rose Bowl last season, the football program has done, well, pretty much everything right in recent months to position itself for a run at the College Football Playoff this year.
Whether the Lions actually make the CFP will come down to any number of things on the field. But off the field, this fabulous week of recruiting serves as simply another step in the ongoing momentum department.
HOOPS HISTORY
By now, you've already seen that Penn State had two players selected in one NBA Draft for the first time ever. While that may not be a huge deal for a lot of big-name programs around the country, it certainly is for the Lions.
I'll be honest, I didn't think Jalen Pickett would go as high as he did -- No. 32 overall to the Denver Nuggets. Pickett obviously had a tremendous season for the Lions in becoming the school's first All-American in 70 years, and his unique "booty ball" style of play was incredibly difficult to stop in college.
I watch a lot of NBA games, and my concern was that Pickett's style of play won't translate well to that level. He's not a great point guard in terms of ball handling and quickness, and he's not a great perimeter shooter. So, I figured Pickett would go somewhere in the 40s or 50s, if he were drafted at all.
But lo and behold, Pickett landed in an absolutely sensational situation. With one team that he should fit in with very, very well.
The Nuggets just won the NBA title and are led by all-everything Nikola Jokic, who has redefined what it means to be a versatile big man. He acts as sort of the point-center for the Nuggets, allowing other players on the team to spread the floor and find spots where they can do damage.
This seems like a perfect fit for Pickett. He won't have to be a traditional point guard distributing the ball, and instead can post up or find open space somewhere and let Jokic find him.
Seth Lundy then went No. 46 overall to the Atlanta Hawks. That's about where many figured Lundy would go in the draft as a good "3 and D" kind of player.
I went into the draft thinking Lundy would be a better NBA player than Pickett, but my thinking changed because Pickett went to the one team where his talents would seem to be perfectly suited.
As for Lundy, he's going to a Hawks team led by ball-dominant point guard Trae Young. For Lundy to succeed there, he can be a spot-up shooter who gets open for kickouts from Young. And of course, Lundy is a very good defensive player, so that should help him stick around the league.
For good measure, Andrew Funk also signed a Summer League deal with the Nuggets on Friday. So, Nuggets GM Calvin Booth, a former Penn State star, is certainly familiar with the two Lion standouts and is giving both a look.
Penn State basketball is coming off one of its best seasons ever, getting to the NCAA Tournament and winning one game, so having a pair of players drafted from that team justifies just how good it really was.
Of course, when it comes to momentum, it stinks that Micah Shrewsberry left for Notre Dame, because it would have been fun to watch what he might have been able to do with the program over a long period of time.
Mike Rhoades has done a very good job filling the roster with quality players, and the Lions should be pretty competitive next season. Then again, they play in the Big Ten, so even teams that are merely pretty competitive can find themselves going 6-14 in the league.
No matter what, we all got to see how much fun Penn State basketball can be if it gets the right players and plays the right style of basketball. Shrewsberry and Pickett found that right style in March, and three months later, the program made history with two draft picks.
Can the hoops program keep up the momentum? Ehhhhh, maybe or maybe not in year one of the Rhoades tenure. But at least the wave of momentum from last season was able to continue through the draft.
