College Basketball
Leo O’Boyle Commits To Penn State
Penn State Great Valley MBA, Penn State Berks Undergrad, Eagle Scout and Vigil Honor, IT Service Manager. I joined Sports Talk Philly in 2017 and root for all the Philly teams (as well as their minor league counter parts).
All posts by Paul BowmanPublished03 May 2023
Mike Rhoads and his staff continue to roll.
On Tuesday night, the staff received their sixth commitment from the transfer portal in the form of Lafayette’s Leo O’Boyle.
O’Boyle will help even out the timing of scholarship players a bit by joining Qudus Wahab as a graduate transfer.
A player who eclipsed his 1,000th point last season, O’Boyle offers the Nittany Lions shooting talents – averaging nearly 41% from the 3 and 42% shooting overall. He also made 86.4% of his free throw attempts.
O’Boyle served as a co-captain for Lafayette last season and averaged 11.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, 1.6 assists and just under a steal in 31 minutes per game.
His transfer brings a team that couldn’t even field a full squad a month ago to one that includes nine scholarship player ready to go for the upcoming season.
Updated Scholarship Chart:
| Leo O’Boyle | Senior (Grad) |
| Qudus Wahab | Senior (Grad) |
| Ace Baldwin | Junior |
| Zach Hicks | Junior |
| Puff Johnson | Junior |
| Nick Kern | Junior |
| Jameel Brown | Sophomore |
| Kanye Clary | Sophomore |
| Demetrius Lilley | Sophomore |
| Vacant | |
| Vacant | |
| Vacant | |
| Vacant |
In Other News
Of course, Penn State basketball still has four scholarships to work with in order to round out their roster.
Among transfer targets, Noah Thomasson is one to watch for Nittany Lions fans. The Niagara guard averaged 19.5 points and 3.8 rebounds per game last season.
Thomasson has said his announcement will come next week, on May 10. Penn State is a finalist, finding themselves up against Pitt, St. John’s, Georgia and San Francisco.
The first two players many fans will likely think of are current Penn Staters Kebba Njie and Evan Mahaffey, who remain in the transfer portal. While Mahaffey’s recruitment has been kept quiet, it is known that Njie has taken visits to Notre Dame and UCF.
While Mahaffey seems like a possibility for the Nittany Lions to retain, Njie has crystal ball predictions, all made within the past several days, that he will follow the former coach to South Bend, so his return seems increasingly unlikely.
In the 2023 recruiting class, Penn State has also officially lost on Shrewsberry and Booth, so the only original signee still unsigned is Logan Imes (though all signs point to his following the others to Notre Dame). While they made the top five for four-star Brady Dunlap a few weeks back, the 2023 forward chose St. John’s on Tuesday.
With that, the staff will be focusing heavily on top-75 prospect Blue Cain, who was recently onsite for an official visit. Landing a top prospect for the 2023 class would be a great achievement for the staff that arrived in Happy Valley so late.
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