While Chris Babb, Andrew Ott and other Penn State basketball players opened up Monday's practice with a light shoot-around, Will Leiner assumed a familiar role.

The reserve point guard joined other members of the scout team to meet with assistant coach Dan Earl, as the reserves walked through plays and mimicked tactics their next opponent, Michigan State, likely will display on Wednesday.

Leiner, as usual, imitated the opposition's point guard -- in this case, Big Ten player of the week Kalin Lucas.

But the stress of duplicating one of the conference's best was likely negated by the absence of another burden the former walk-on once had, as Leiner was offered a scholarship by the Penn State coaching staff for the spring semester.

"Will's been such a valuable part of our program," head coach Ed DeChellis said.

"He's a kid that the guys respect because of his work ethic. He's given us four great years, and I thought it was the right thing to do."

The scholarship for this semester became free in September when then-senior forward Joonas Suotamo chose to forgo his final season of eligibility and begin compulsory service in the Finnish military.

DeChellis said Leiner was very appreciative of the offer, and the coach was happy to finally reward him.

"He definitely has earned it," fifth-year senior Danny Morrissey said. "He's done nothing but what the coaches have asked and he's helped all of us become better players, whether it's on the court or off the court."

Oliver likely to redshirt

After suffering a pair of concussions in practice early in the season, Billy Oliver got off to a slow start with the Nittany Lions.

The freshman never entered a game and, over Christmas break, he caught the flu, losing eight pounds.

The series of bad breaks has DeChellis thinking about redshirting the forward.

Oliver has already missed more than half of his first season with the Lions.

"I don't think you can just throw him out there and I didn't want him to have a 14, 15-game schedule," the sixth-year coach said. "I want him to be able to play a 32-game schedule his freshman year, and to cut it short, cut it in half, I didn't think it was fair to him."