By BEN BRIGANDI
STATE COLLEGE – Incoming freshman guard Tim Frazier watched Penn State win the NIT last March and bragged to a high school teammate about beating Notre Dame along the way.
Incoming freshman swingman Bill Edwards recalled sitting in his living room with his mother as the team defeated Baylor at Madison Square Garden and thinking “I can play in the big time next year.”
When Ed DeChellis was named Penn State’s men’s basketball coach in 2003, he talked not of rebuilding, but of building a “healthy” program. He is still looking for his first NCAA tournament bid after six seasons here, but armed with an NIT championship ring and a recently-announced contract extension running through 2014, some higher expectations seem more reasonable than in years past. One would be that next year’s freshmen class can watch this year’s team play in the school’s first NCAA Tournament since 2001.
“I won’t say we’ve arrived, that’s foolish, but we’ve improved our program every year here,” DeChellis said Monday during the team’s media day at the outset of preseason practice. “The football coach here says either you get better or you get worse. We’re either going to get better or we’re not.”