After Staying at Penn State, Demetrius Lilley Turns a Corner

Lilley's freshman year didn't go as planned. But the Nittany Lions forward said, "I don't want to give up that easy."

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. | Penn State's Demetrius Lilley stepped onto the Bryce Jordan Center court during an open preseason practice and took his place in the paint for a drill. His task? Play defense against a 2-on-1 rush at the rim. Lilley — a 6-foot-10, second-year forward — forced a miss on his first opportunity but didn’t hustle for the rebound. Penn State men's basketball coach Mike Rhoades was unhappy.

Rhoades made Lilley repeat the drill, with a similar result. And again, after Lilley missed another small detail, like staying with the primary ball-handler too long. Rhoades stopped everything, had a stern conversation with Lilley and put him back out there. Then Lilley got the drill right. 

Rhoades, whose overall intensity has been praised since he arrived at Penn State, wasn’t going to brush past any mistake, especially with Lilley. Some coaches might have offered a word of advice or an “atta boy,” hoping the next rep would be right. But the relationship between Lilley and Rhoades is a bit different.

Rhoades has been hard on Lilley but also has been rewarded. In Penn State's 87-83 upset over No. 11 Wisconsin, Lilley played a career-high 19 minutes, scored four points with six rebounds, two steals and a well-timed block. In search of an interior spark against the Badgers, Rhoades turned to Lilley, who is a different player than he was last season.

“Great minutes. He played till exhaustion, subbed him out, he went back in and played to exhaustion," Rhoades said after the Lions' win. "He had a big block, had some rebounds. I thought his ball-screen defense was huge throughout the game and his energy. Because he's such a great kid and he works really hard, I think that fueled our team. The teammates were hyped for him. And that's being about [something] bigger than yourself. That was huge.”

A consensus 3-star recruit from Philadelphia's Lower Merion High School, Lilley was overshadowed in his first season at Penn State in 2022. He played in just five games, a total of 14 minutes, scoring four points (all in one game). He was a bit overweight (260 pounds on the roster), wasn’t seeing the floor and was frustrated.

As a player who holds records at the same high school Kobe Bryant attended, Lilley went through a long freshman season. He became the all-time leading rebounder at Lower Merion and the first player to average a double-double in three straight seasons since Bryant. Pile the first-year struggles with the departure of the coach who recruited him, Micah Shrewsberry, and it was a recipe for the transfer portal.

“It was different. It was complicated. It was hard. I was just like, 'Wow, went from playing the whole game to not playing at all,’” Lilley told AllPennState before the season started. “I think, in life, you gotta go through something to be better.”

Instead of transferring, Lilley was one of the only 2022-23 Penn State players who returned without entering the portal. Lilley also returned to school listed at 245 pounds on the official roster, though Rhoades joked that Lilley lost “half of himself” over the summer — a whopping 42 pounds since they met. The number doesn’t quite do his transformation justice.

“I felt as though that's kind of like the easy way out. I wanted to stick with it. Stick with the plan. See what can happen. See what this year brings me,” Lilley said. “I wanted to stay just because one, Coach Rhoades and two, just to see what we can do.”

Lilley at least had a good season to observe. Penn State completed one of the more memorable seasons in program history, riding a Cinderella run to the Big Ten Tournament championship game as well as the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Lilley learned from talented veterans like Seth Lundy, Jalen Pickett, Myles Dread and Andrew Funk, but none of it was easy.

“Hell yeah, I was frustrated," he said. "Like, so frustrated, man. It was hard to sit on the bench, but like I said, I took a lot from that.”

Lilley still has plenty of room to grow, as Rhoades has said and is evident when watching him play. For example: Lilley fouled out in eight minutes against Maryland in the Big Ten opener but also pulled down two offensive rebounds and made some high-effort plays on defense. The necessary growth is happening in real time, thanks in part to the commitment he made last summer.

“I said, 'Meech, if you want to get on the court and help us in our style of play, you gotta get in the best shape of your life. Or you're just not going to play. You might, but it's going to be really, really hard,’” Rhoades said after Lilley scored a career-high eight points on Nov. 14 against Saint Francis. “Now it’s time to keep taking the next step.”

Lilley will keep growing at Penn State, alongside Rhoades and a team with 10 new players trying to navigate their place in a program building from scratch.

“My dad always told me not to give up so easy. I wasn't just gonna leave because I didn't play. There's a reason I didn't play, you know what I'm saying?” Lilley said. “Not leaving was like, 'I don't want to give up that easy.' I want to see what I can bring to Penn State, what Penn State has for me, what does Coach Rhoades need out of me to get some playing time.”

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Max Ralph is a Penn State senior studying Broadcast Journalism with minors in sports studies and Japanese. He previously covered Penn State football for two years with The Daily Collegian and has reported with the Associated Press and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Follow him on Twitter (X) @maxralph_ and Instagram @mralph_59.

AllPennState is the place for Penn State news, opinion and perspective on the SI.com network.