After failing to a play a single second in any of the first seven games for the Penn State men's basketball team, Aaron Johnson has seen more significant minutes recently.

The freshman walk-on has played 20 and 16 minutes in the first pair of Big Ten games against Indiana and Michigan, respectively.

"He has really improved in practice, which has allowed him to move up the depth chart," Dunn said. "How Aaron continues to play will dictate how many minutes he'll play."

Johnson's best game of the season came in a 68-60 victory over Buffalo on Jan. 4, when he scored six points and grabbed seven rebounds in 15 minutes of action.

Of his seven rebounds, three of them came on the offensive end of the floor. Johnson went 1-for-3 from the field and 4-for-5 from the free-throw stripe with an assist and a block.

Dunn said that Johnson's amount of playing time will be determined by the way he plays in practice as well as how the other frontcourt players perform.

The 6-foot-9 power forward has a knack for finding the ball, despite competing against taller and more athletic players.

Against the Hoosiers, Johnson battled against one of the better forward combinations in the Big Ten.

Johnson managed to pull down six rebounds while fighting for boards with Hoosier forwards Jeff Newton, who leads the conference in rebounding at 9.9 rebounds per game, and George Leach, who is averaging 8.5 rebounds per game.

With the struggles of the low-post players in the Nittany Lions' line-up, Dunn has been forced to go to a player-by-committee rotation that is ever-changing during each game.

"It's difficult to say how many minutes a guy will get from game to game," Dunn said.

"I don't think we're in a situation where one particular guy has a certain amount of minutes nailed down."