Centre Daily Times | 03/09/2005 | Claxton driven to reverse Nittany Lions’ losing ways:
“He curls around the chair, grabs the pass, elevates, shoots. The ball caroms off the rim. Then, around the other chair — catch, jump, shoot. This one rattles home.
“At the opposite end of the court, his teammates are casually shooting around, joking with each other, trying to forget their nine-game losing streak and the soreness in their legs.
“Geary Claxton, though, is working. Because he doesn’t know what else to do, doesn’t see any other way out of this … losing. He had dealt with it before, but never like this. So even now, before coach Ed DeChellis walks to midcourt and claps his hands to signal the start of another practice, Claxton is trying to improve his game, a drill, a shot, a step at a time.
“‘That’s something I never used to do,’ he says. ‘Like really going hard at it is something … I don’t know, it’s addictive. I work hard at everything. I never used to like working hard, but I learned once I got here.’
“DeChellis knew before the season that Penn State would lean, heavily at times, on its four freshmen. He also knew that they would struggle. He couldn’t have known that one of them would assert himself as the team’s most productive and consistent player, improve as the competition toughened and get a group of restless fans excited about the future of Nittany Lion basketball. …”