Posts filed under ‘Nittany Lion basketball’
Penn State Picks Pat Chambers
Eleven days after Ed DeChellis ’82 abruptly stepped down as Penn State’s men’s basketball coach, Penn State has named his replacement: Boston University head coach Pat Chambers. He’ll be introduced at a news conference at University Park on Monday afternoon.
Chambers was at BU just two years, but posted two 21-win seasons and took the Terriers to the NCAA tournament in just his second year (though the Boston Globe couldn’t resist pointing out that he did it largely with the players he inherited from the previous coach, Dennis Wolff).
Before BU—and this is the part that many Penn State fans find appealing—he spent five seasons as an assistant under Jay Wright at Villanova. The Wildcats went to the Sweet Sixteen in four of those five seasons, including their Final Four appearance in 2009.
Penn State athletic director Tim Curley ’76, ’78g surely found Chambers’ Philly-area recruiting ties appealing. Besides his stint at Villanova, Chambers also grew up in the Philly area and played at Philadelphia University under Herb Magee, who was just named to the Hall of Fame this year.
Dave Jones of the Harrisburg Patriot-News, often a harsh critic of the Penn State program, thinks Chambers has a chance to be the kind of recruiting salesman that Penn State badly needs.
ESPN’s Dana O’Neil ’90 is even more enthusiastic: “Penn State finally breathed life into a program that, for years, has reeked of mothballs,” she writes. “Bruce Parkhill begat Jerry Dunn begat Ed DeChellis, all decent coaches, all good men and all who moved the energy meter about an eighth of an inch every five years.” Chambers, by contrast, “is the typical kid from a big Irish family (12 kids in all), who is used to living large and loud and who has a fire and intensity that borders on manic.”
For an interesting profile of Chambers, check out this story from the Boston University website.
Tina Hay, editor
Ed DeChellis Steps Down
It seems nobody saw this coming.
Late Monday afternoon, word trickled out that Ed DeChellis ’82, the Penn State men’s basketball coach for the past eight years, was leaving to take over at Navy. That news was confirmed at a press conference Monday night, when DeChellis met the media to explain his decision. It was an emotional, occasionally contentious 15 minutes, but it left no doubt that the move is one DeChellis felt compelled to make.
You can read DeChellis’ official statement here, but the full audio of his Monday night presser is more revealing. Nearly breaking down at times, the coach said he felt the call of duty from the Naval Academy, and that the call was too loud to ignore. “Like this is something I needed to do,” DeChellis said, “somewhere I needed to be.” Anyone who knows DeChellis knows he’s a man for whom words like “honor” and “integrity” seem to hold real meaning, and he insisted that his decision had nothing to do with any issues at Penn State.
That didn’t stop speculation among fans and media, some of the most pointed of which you can read in the Patriot-News and on ESPN.com. DeChellis is moving to a lower-profile job at a substantial pay cut, but he waved off any suggestion that his decision was motivated by a perceived lack of support for men’s basketball at Penn State. “It’s a great job,” he said. “This is about what I wanted to do with my life.”
DeChellis leaves his alma mater with a record of 114-138 in eight seasons. The record wasn’t what the coach or Penn State fans had hoped for, but DeChellis leaves with some impressive entries on his resume: The 2009 NIT championship (the first postseason tournament title in program history), a 2011 NCAA tournament berth, and having recruited and coached Talor Battle ’11, arguably the best player in Nittany Lion history. He was also named 2009 Big Ten Coach of the Year. A cancer survivor, DeChellis was heavily involved with the national Coaches v. Cancer program, and was named that organization’s Man of the Year in 2006.
Athletic director Tim Curley ’76, ’78 MEd said the University will immediately begin a national search for DeChellis’ replacement.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Taran Buie Hits the Road
This isn’t how we hoped Taran Buie’s story would turn out.
We assume most Alumni Association members recall our Sept/Oct 2010 cover story on Buie and his half-brother Talor Battle, the basketball teammates on whose talents Penn State’s 2010-11 season figured to rest. In that, we were half right: Battle wrapped up arguably the finest career in Nittany Lion history by leading the team to its first NCAA tournament berth since 2001. Buie? The highly touted freshmen showed flashes of promise early in the season, but was suspended indefinitely for violations of team rules at the start of Big Ten play. That suspension ran through the end of the season, leaving most observers to assume Buie wouldn’t be back.
Well, now it’s official. On Monday, coach Ed DeChellis ’82 announced that Buie has been released from his scholarship, leaving him free to play at another school. Buie’s history of minor legal scrapes—most recently, he was one of a handful of Penn State athletes charged with disorderly conduct following a scuffle last month—likely won’t prevent him from finding a suitor, particularly among college coaches who remember him as one of the most talented high school players in the country. It’s a shame he couldn’t follow his older brother’s example: Battle, by all accounts, has been a model student-athlete during his four years on campus.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
John Amaechi Takes On Kobe Bryant
One of the big sports stories of the week has been NBA star Kobe Bryant being caught on camera uttering a gay slur at a referee. Of the many opinions offered in the story’s wake, arguably none are as well-informed as that of John Amaechi ’94, the former Penn State hoop star who remains the only former NBA player to come out as gay. Amaechi, an outspoken advocate for gay rights and other social issues, addressed the issue today in an essay on the New York Times website.
Based on Kobe’s words today in a radio interview, it sounds like the Laker superstar might’ve been paying attention.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Back From Japan, With Stories to Tell
Tyler Smith knows he was lucky. The former Nittany Lion basketball player had his job disrupted and his family displaced last month by the earthquake, tsunami, and resulting nuclear crisis in Japan, but he knows most of his teammates have it much worse. “Japan is their home; they don’t have anywhere else to go,” Smith said. “I could hop on a plane and leave.”
Smith ’02 plays professionally for the Hitachi Sunrockers, a team in Japan’s JBL Super League. Smith, his wife Cara Van Fossan ’01, and their young daughter were unhurt in the disaster, and they returned to the States last month after the league was forced to cancel the remainder of its season. A reporter from ESPN.com recently caught up with Smith, who talked about experiencing the massive quake, how Japan’s culture of respect has helped its people deal with the tragedy they face, and life as a 6-foot-10 blond guy in the shortest nation on earth.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
NCAA Dreams, Shattered and Still Alive
I felt terrible Thursday for the guys on the Penn State basketball team, but as someone who has closely followed the team this season, straddling the line between media member and unabashed fan, I didn’t actually feel that bad myself. To lose an NCAA first-round game that way—on a contested last-second shot against Temple—was brutal, but it’s also what makes the tournament great. All those shining moments and fantastic finishes inevitably leave one side feeling crushed.
On Thursday, Penn State was just one of a few teams to see its season end in the dying seconds. There will be many more over the next couple of weeks. Had the Nittany Lions gotten the ball last, we’d be talking about their chances Saturday to pull a bigger upset and make the Sweet 16. That’s how it goes.
Consolation? Well, sure, in a sense. As Talor Battle (pictured), moments after the final game of his remarkable career, summed up, “For the rest of my life, I’ll know that we didn’t just come out here and get beat. It took a heck of a shot to beat us.”
For some of the best local perspectives on the game, here’s coverage from Blue White Illustrated, Fight on State, the Centre Daily Times, and the Harrisburg Patriot-News.
Penn State athletes are far from done in NCAA competition, though. The Big Ten champion wrestling team was in first place after the first day of the three-day NCAA championship tournament, placing seven wrestlers into the quarterfinals of the winner’s bracket. As of early Friday afternoon, the Lions had four wrestlers through to the semis, and looked to be locked in an extremely tight battle with Cornell in the team standings. It should come down to the wire on Saturday night.
And on Saturday morning, the sixth-seeded Lady Lion basketball team opens NCAA play with an 11 a.m. tipoff against Dayton at the Bryce Jordan Center. You can find more information here.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
A Happy, Historic Night For Penn State Hoops
I asked Talor Battle the first question of Tuesday’s post-game press conference. He seemed to know it was coming. He’s heard variations of it before.
“You know what’s funny?” he said with a smile. “Whenever we win, someone mentions how we lost to Maine.”
Andrew Jones' eight boards were huge; his final rebound led to the game-winning basket.
He can smile now, but at the time, there was nothing funny about it. Three weeks ago, the Nittany Lion basketball team closed out its non-conference schedule with a 10-point home loss to Maine. It was a brutal way to head into conference play, the sort of loss that implied this team might be headed for a dismal winter in Big Ten play.
Instead, the Lions are 3-2 in what might be the best conference in the nation (and 10-6 overall), with wins in the past four days over Michigan State and Illinois. Both were ranked in the top 20 at the time, giving Penn State its first back-to-back wins over ranked teams since 1954 — the year the Nittany Lions made their only trip to the NCAA Final Four.
Penn State still has much to do to get back to the NCAA tournament this season, but these two most recent wins will help. Which led to my question for Battle, the Nittany Lions’ inspiring senior star: What happened to turn that team into this one? Battle figures the loss to Maine itself might have inspired this team’s apparent rebirth.
“Maybe that’s what sparked the fire in us,” he said last night, still smiling. “The last few games, we’ve really played hard for each other.”
That they have. The 57-55 win over the Illini marked the second straight game Penn State outrebounded a bigger, stronger opponent. (more…)
Penn State Sports: The Monday Blahs
The busiest Penn State sports weekend of the semester was a bit of a letdown. There was some good news: the Nittany and Lady Lion basketball teams and sixth-ranked wrestling team opened their seasons with wins, and the No. 8 women’s volleyball team extended its Rec Hall unbeaten streak to 88 matches with sweeps of Wisconsin and No. 9 Illinois.
That was the good news.
There was disappointment but no shame as the field hockey and women’s soccer teams both fell to higher-ranked opponents in NCAA tournament play. The men’s soccer team, meanwhile, hosted the Big Ten tournament at Jeffrey Field, beating Northwestern in the opener and upsetting top-seeded Indiana in the semis to set up a meeting with Michigan in the final. We were blessed with unbelievable weather this weekend, so I took in both Friday’s semifinal and Sunday’s final.
I also took our camera; credit for whatever half-decent shots I got goes largely to our Nikon D40. Here’s one from Friday afternoon’s semifinal against IU. That’s Penn State midfielder Drew Cost (8) lining up a long-range shot. (Click to enlarge)
Jeffrey Field is one of my favorite places on campus to be in the fall. The sunsets up there can be gorgeous, and they made for some great shadows and color on the field. It’s also a nice backdrop for a fan looking contemplative over his vuvuzela.
Penn State lost the title game to Michigan, 4-1, a score that didn’t reflect how well Penn State played — the Nittany Lions actually outshot the Wolverines 23-16 on the day. Here’s one of those shots, a first-half attempt by freshman forward Jordan Tyler.
The Nittany Lions’ only goal came late in the first half, when Cost received a pass on the edge of the Michigan box, made a quick move to his right and shot low toward the far corner…
The keeper never had a chance.
The final score was a bummer, but at least the kids had a good time: That’s my son and my buddy Dave’s two boys clowning around at halftime.
Figured I’d end it with some cuteness.
The soccer team awaits confirmation of an NCAA at-large bid, to be announced Monday afternoon.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
JoePa Gets 400, and Much More From a Busy Weekend of Penn State Sports
It’s shaping up to be a beautiful week in State College, fitting weather for the campus-wide good vibes still lingering from Saturday night. I took my 5-year-old to Beaver Stadium, and after the game I told him that one day he’d be able to tell his kids about seeing Joe Paterno win his 400th game. Honestly, I don’t think he grasped it; all my son knew was that he had a blast high-fiving our neighbors in section NAU over and over again in that second half.
In the two days since, there have been a bunch of great stories on Joe Paterno’s 400th career win (we’ve already linked to a couple of them on our Facebook page). Here’s a couple more you might have missed:
-This wrap-up from the Altoona Mirror is cool for the embedded video link, which offers a close-up view of Paterno on the shoulders of lineman Eric Shrive and graduate assistant coach Gus Felder ’02 (who I’m pretty sure was on the field as a player when Joe broke Bear Bryant’s Division I victory record back in 2001). It offers a (more…)
A Pivotal Season for Nittany Lion Hoops
The Penn State men’s basketball team held its annual media day Monday afternoon, suiting up for interviews and pictures before running through an open practice. As you’d expect, the mood was good: These preseason gatherings tend to be optimistic, with players and coaches focused on the season’s potential and a schedule loaded with winnable games. But even by those standards, these Nittany Lions seem like an especially positive and confident bunch. That’s encouraging, and perhaps a little surprising.
Last season, (more…)
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