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“A Pittsburgh writer asked Ed DeChellis if he’s thought much about last year’s Pitt game and how the Nittany Lions can get off to a better start today.
” ‘It was 39-11,’ DeChellis said. ‘Why would I want to think about that?’
“DeChellis forced a chuckle. It’s been important for him to keep his sense of humor during the massive rebuilding project he’s undertaken with Penn State’s basketball program: He might as well wear a hard hat to work every day.”
A sort of homecoming for Gray:
“When Aaron Gray signed his letter of intent to play basketball at Pitt two years ago, he learned that finding Panthers apparel around his Eastern Pennsylvania hometown wasn’t an easy task.
” ‘It’s all about Penn State there,’ said the 7-footer from Emmaus, between Allentown and Philadelphia. ‘You can’t find articles of clothing on Pittsburgh. When I signed, I did it in front of a camera and it took me like a week and a half to go out and find a Pitt hat just so I could wear it.’
“But Gray expects to see a Pittsburgh posse in the crowd when Pitt plays at Penn State’s Jordan Center in University Park at 2 p.m. today.
” ‘I know it’s going to be a big game for me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to try to have about 45 people there. It’s only a little over an hour to my house. I want to try to go out there and give a good show to all my family and friends.’ “
Ross Jr.: Rivalry days gone for Pitt, PSU – PittsburghLIVE.com:
“The topic of a Pitt-Penn State rivalry in men’s basketball is more brontosaurus than unicorn. The rivalry really did exist once upon a time, but you have to do some digging to find the evidence.
“Certainly, recent meetings have been anything but rivalry-like, and not just because Pitt’s margins of victory in the past three meetings have been, beginning with last year’s example, 28 points, 22 and 30, respectively.
“That is a factor, though.
” ‘They’ve beaten us soundly the last few years,’ Penn State second-year coach Ed DeChellis said. ‘We haven’t really given them a run.’
“That doesn’t figure to change much Saturday, when Pitt plays a 2 p.m. game in PSU’s Bryce Jordan Center. The Panthers are 6-0, fresh off a 70-51 dispatching of Memphis in the Jimmy V. Classic. Penn State is 5-3 and a 66-53 loser to Georgetown in its previous outing.
“Factors beyond a lack of competitiveness have conspired to relegate this formerly flourishing rivalry to the tar pits. …”
Centre Daily Times | 12/10/2004 | State rivalry leaning Pitt’s way right now:
“On Jan. 1, 8-3 Pitt — excuse me, Pittsburgh — will meet 11-0 Utah in the Fiesta Bowl, a matchup forged by Lucifer himself — excuse me, the BCS — if you happen to be a Penn State fan.
“What could be worse than Pitt, with three losses, playing in a New Year’s Day bowl game — a BCS game, mind you?
“The Nittany Lions not playing on New Year’s Day, or any day until September, for one.
“Saturday’s inevitable shellacking of the Penn State men’s basketball team by the same hated Panthers, for another.
“The state’s great collegiate rivalry has fizzled, mainly because the schools will no longer play each other in football and aren’t fit to be in the same gym in men’s basketball. And the latter doesn’t have as much to do with Penn State’s recent hardwood woes as it does with the stunning four-year rise of Pitt(sburgh).
“On March 19, 2001, Pitt lost to Mississippi State in the second round of the NIT, capping a 19-14 season. Four days later, Penn State’s remarkable season ended at 21-12 with a loss to Temple in the NCAA regional semifinal.
“In the three-plus seasons since, Penn State is 28-64, while the Panthers have gone 94-16, won three consecutive Big East titles and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament each of the last three years. They’ve done so with outstanding coaching, strong recruiting and a brand of basketball that is brutally efficient if not terribly elegant.
“The keys to that defense have been guys like now-departed Julius Page and Javon Brown, big, versatile guards that do some damage on offense but make their living at the other end of the floor. …”
PSU to face test in No. 11 Pitt:
“The big boys are coming to town Saturday.
“You can forget about all of the East Stroudsburg’s and Lock Haven’s of the world when No. 11 Pittsburgh comes to the Bryce Jordan Center to take on the Penn State men’s basketball team at 2 p.m. tomorrow.
“Unlike some of these lower division schools on the Nittany Lions schedule thus far, Pitt (6-0) is a well-oiled machine. The Panthers are led by senior forward Chevon Troutman, 6-10 sophomore forward Chris Taft and junior guard Karl Krauser. In its annual season preview, The Sporting News said, ‘there is no team with a better point-post duo’ than Krauser and Taft.
” ‘They’re big kids, strong kids, athletic kids,’ Penn State coach Ed DeChellis said. ‘It’s a very, very good front line, something that we’re obviously going to have to deal with.’ …”
DeChellis defined by persistence:
“As he drove home from practice Wednesday night, Penn State coach Ed DeChellis chatted on his cell phone with a reporter. The signal cut out a couple of times, but DeChellis kept hitting the redial button.
“He’s persistent like that.
“Good thing. If his first 19 months on the job in Happy Valley are any indication, that trait will come in handy.
“The Nittany Lions won just nine games in DeChellis’ debut, and won’t do much better this season. A handful of players have bolted the program. In August, DeChellis needed emergency bladder surgery and missed out on coaching the Big Ten’s foreign tour team in Europe.
“Every time DeChellis plugs a hole in the dike, water squirts out someplace else. Not even a week into the season, point guard Ben Luber, who averaged 38 minutes a game last year, took a stress-related leave of absence.
“Two games later, shooting guard Marlon Smith went down with a twisted ankle. That forced the Lions to play with three freshmen on the perimeter.
” ‘I haven’t had the greatest luck,’ DeChellis said with a wry laugh. ‘But we’ve been able to work through it and get through it. So, that’s a positive.’
“Saturday, a blowout looms when Penn State (5-3) plays host to Pitt (6-0) at the Bryce Jordan Center. DeChellis is realistic about his team’s chances. …”
Centre Daily Times | 12/09/2004 | Luber resumes practice, likely to play Saturday:
“For 25 of the 33 games he has coached at Penn State, Ed DeChellis has had one scholarship point guard available. All 25 times, that point guard has been a true freshman.
“In his 34th game, DeChellis will have at his disposal what to him might seem a luxury — two point guards.
“Ben Luber participated in his first full practice with the Nittany Lions in nearly three weeks on Wednesday, and both he and DeChellis expect Luber will play when Penn State hosts No. 11 Pittsburgh on Saturday.
” ‘Throughout the past week I’ve been feeling a lot happier just playing basketball,’ said Luber, who had been on the Nittany Lions’ inactive roster since Nov. 19 for personal reasons. ‘And something inside me just told me that I needed to be back out here. That’s what I wanted to do.’
“The 6-foot, 178-pound sophomore from Richboro once again declined to get into the reasons for his absence, but his return should provide a boost to a very young Penn State backcourt that has played a lot of minutes in the early part of the season.”
Attitude biggest challenge for DeChellis at PSU:
“An aggregation of hundreds — players and coaches; dignified and determined men — came here hoping to halt history’s avalanching momentum.
“The force of losing has sent careers hurtling off track. ‘The job just wore me out,’ said Bruce Parkhill, who coached Penn State from 1983-1995 before stepping down. ‘It’s kind of consuming, really.’
“The force of losing has deterred those who could potentially stop it. Rarely, in the previous generation, have the top in-state basketball recruits attended Penn State. Matt Carroll, who is searching for permanent work in the NBA, visited Penn State almost 10 times while in high school near Philadelphia. He then decided on Notre Dame. Scranton’s Gerry McNamara thought about signing with Penn State, but he preferred a program that could sustain success, not manufacture it from nothing.
” ‘I wanted to go to more of a basketball factory,’ said McNamara, who later chose Syracuse and helped it to a 2003 national championship. …”
Sincere apologies for the problems we began experiencing last night on PennStateHoops.com.
The hosting company upgraded its operating system over the weekend, and this caused some of its clients’ databases to fail intermittently. This is what we experienced during the game last night.
The IT staff at PennStateHoops.com mistakenly assumed that it was a denial of service attack, so they began feverishly applying overdue security upgrades. When that didn’t work, they attempted to upgrade the content management system – well into the night.
That went poorly.
Rest assured, several people have been fired, others are under review and operating on probation, and some of the IT work will now be outsourced to Aroostook County. We are working on the paperwork for that as we speak.
In the meantime, we have
More cleanup work is expected in the days ahead.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
“WASHINGTON, D.C. – It is the start of the cold and flu season. And last night the Penn State Nittany Lions played as if need of rest and plenty of fluids.
“On the heels of a road win at Rutgers in which the Lions appeared ready to win even when down 8 early, their latest road foray was one long search through the fridge for Jell-O.
“Georgetown led wire to wire, got a combined 46 points and nine blocks from long forwards Brandon Bowman and Jeff Green and needed only to fight off a single second-half run to register a 66-53 win before 6,127 in the MCI Center.
“The Lions (5-3) also forgot their alarm clocks. And with top scorer and team leader Aaron Johnson and third guard Danny Morrissey both suffering from the flu and a cold respectively, they might as well have gone back to bed.
“They did muster a fight. After reeling in almost all of an opening 17-point deficit, the Lions trailed only 42-39 with 11:45 still to go and had a sizable contingent of State fans in the MCI Center outyelling the home fans. “