Centre Daily Times | 07/08/2005 | Jeff Rice | Recruits bring international flavor to PSU:
“You could blame last season’s 7-23 record on a lack of talent, a lack of able bodies or a lack of experience. Or, a little of each. Discounting the inner turmoil that ate at the Penn State men’s basketball team, though, would be a mistake.
“The good news? If this season’s Nittany Lions want to bicker amongst themselves, they’ll probably have to get an interpreter.
“About a month after post man Milos Bogetic first hit the Penn State weight room, another product of Serbia and Montenegro, Nikola Obradovic, arrived on the University Park campus, joining Bogetic and the rest of the Nittany Lions in summer workouts.
“While both have enjoyed success in summer-session classes, Obradovic is finding the full-time language transition a bit more trying than Bogetic.
” ‘I can barely understand half the words that come out of his mouth in English,’ said sophomore guard Mike Walker. ‘He’ll talk for whole paragraphs and I’ll be like, ‘What did he just say?”
“Joonas Suotamo, currently playing for Finland’s national team, will join Penn State at the end of the summer and add to what is a decidedly international flavor of a six-member incoming class.
“Fortunately for Bogetic and Obradovic, they have each other, someone to explain things to or simply empathize with. Fortunately for the Nittany Lions, they have two — and soon, three — freshmen without the sense of entitlement or ego that has been all too common in the Penn State locker room. …”