Patrick Chambers 'emotional' about Penn State's lost NCAA opportunity

Patrick Chambers passes his days without basketball like most working Americans.

He has been on several conference calls with his Penn State coaching staff, university colleagues and administrators.

In his free time, he reads and plays cards and board games with his children. An especially favored activity, he said, is taking walks with his wife, Courtney.

But none of it is the same as how it would have been settling in front of his bench while his Nittany Lions made an appearance in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in his nine-year Penn State tenure.

The first game would have been this week.

“I’m getting emotional right now thinking about it,” he said Friday on a conference call with reporters. “I apologize.

“Devastation would be a good word, but, obviously, this is much bigger than basketball. It’s like nothing I have ever seen in my entire 49 years of lifetime.”

Penn State (21-10, 11-9) was in the midst of, arguably, its best season under Chambers. Only four Big Ten teams won more conference games.

The Nittany Lions won 26 games and the NIT championship in 2017-18, but they were a lock for this year’s NCAA Tournament after winning 20 of their first 25 games. A late-season slump — five losses in their last six games — whetted their appetite for redemption.

“We were really excited about a new season, a reset, a recalibrate,” Chambers said. “We had some of our best practices. Guys looked healthy.

“Guys had an extra tick in their step.”

The team was in Indianapolis for the Big Ten Tournament, waiting to play Indiana, when the Big Ten canceled its tournament because of the coronavirus outbreak.

After delivering the news about the Big Ten, the team boarded a plane for home. At that time, the NCAA Tournament was scheduled to proceed, albeit in empty arenas. After consulting with Penn State medical personnel, Chambers was OK with that.

As the plane started to prepare for landing, more bad news surfaced.

“As you start to get lower,” Chambers said, “everybody starts turning their phones on, and you heard some angst and some ‘aahs’ and one of my assistants came up and showed me a tweet.”

That’s not the way Chambers wanted his players to receive bad news.

“You can’t deliver a message to your team because they all saw it on social media first,” he said. “I’m just not a big fan of it.”

After the plane landed, the team boarded a bus for the ride to campus.

“Nothing was really said,” Chambers said. “It was eerily quiet. I told the guys I didn’t want to do it on the bus. ‘Meet me in the locker room.’

“To deliver the news was horrible. It was one of the hardest things I‘ve ever done. Guys were crying. Guys’ heads were down. There was a lot of hugging, a lot of appreciation, a lot of love. That will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Chambers was particularly hurt for two-time All-Big Ten forward Lamar Stevens, who had said he returned to Penn State last year when he could have gone to the NBA so he could play in the NCAA Tournament.

Stevens, who later told ESPN he was “heartbroken,” finished with 2,207 career points, six off the all-time Penn State record held by Talor Battle.

He damn sure would have. Texted my guy after the news broke telling him I am sorry it ended the way it did. #greatKid #11 #12 https://t.co/8g1x2X5bUq

— Talor Battle (@BubbyBattle) March 18, 2020

As an adult and leader of the program, Chambers is tasked with helping his players deal with disappointment.

“It’s a great reminder that nothing is guaranteed, not tomorrow, not an hour from now, not the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “Look, I was stabbed (in an incident in Philadelphia in 2002), so I always go back to the tragedy and think I could have been dead and I was given a second chance.

“There are blessings. There are rebirths from tragedies and setbacks, and how we teach that and how we advise and guide these young men is going to be vital when we get some normalcy sometime in the future.”

Chambers understood why tournaments were canceled. He didn’t understand why the annual selection show also was scrubbed.

“To be able to hear that and see that (would have been special),” he said. “That’s why I was so disappointed at the NCAA’s decision. I’d still like an answer.”

There is no official bracket because most conference tournaments were canceled before they could crown a champion.

Joe Lunardi’s ESPN bracketology had Penn State as a No. 6 seed, matched with in-state rival and No. 3 Villanova in a potential second-round game.

Chambers laughed when a reporter mentioned that possibility.

“It would have been great to go against my mentor in (Villanova coach) Jay Wright,” he said. “We can only dream. We can only dream.”