Let's Talk Hoops, Shall We?

I realize that we're smack-dab in the middle of college football season but as one of probably 50 PSU basketball fans on the planet, I'm going to interrupt your regularly scheduled water-cooler talk and briefly divert your attention towards the Fighting DeChellises."

Official practice begins tomorrow, exactly a month before the team's regular season opener against Central PA rival St. Francis.  From what I've read on the PennStatehoops.com message board, this year's squad will not be your slightly older brother's PSU team.  

The guard position seems to have gotten a double-dose of quickness and firepower with the addition of Stanley Pringle and Talor Battle.  Pringle is a slasher of a point guard, which is something that will seem breathtakingly new to us after watching Ben Luber dribble endlessly around the perimeter for the last four years.  This is very important as Pringle will make opposing teams focus on him and his driving abilities, which will open things up for Mike Walker and Danny Morrissey, our main perimeter shooters.  

Talor Battle has also proven to have quick feet, and according to a message board poster who observed him in fall practice, "passes the ball like its on a rope." Did I also neglect to mention that he's only 5'11" and can dunk?  Finally, our very own Spud Webb! (with a few inches added)

Jeff Brooks, the Kentucky wunderkind whom we stole from Louisville's backyard, seems to be as good as advertised.  Think of him as a 6'8" version of Geary Claxton.  Speaking of forwards, D.J. Jackson hopefully will make it through the entire season in one piece, he never quite blossomed last year like I hoped due to a stress fracture.  Andrew Jones should be a real wild card as the coaching staff redshirted him last year, saying that he had "NBA potential" but they had to bring him up properly.  Let's hope their strategy works.

As for key returnees:  Geary will be Geary, Cornley is looking leaner which may help with his ability to run the floor, and Walker and Morrissey will continue to fire away from beyond the arc.  Only difference is, they should have a far greater supporting cast this year.  We can't forget about Joonas Suotamo either, he actually saw a decent amount of PT towards the end of the year and surprisingly held his own ground in some games, I'm looking for him to build off his momentum from last year and continue to contribute into this year.

This is getting really long and I plan to save some commentary for my own blog (Google "Happy Hour Valley") so I'll conclude by saying this:  The pieces seem to be set for the "up-tempo" offense that Coach DeChellis promised we would see when he was first introduced as head coach four and half years ago.  Now in his 5th year, the pressure is on him to erase the bad memories of last season's abomination and to take another leap forward or we may be riding the coaching carousel come March.  An NCAA bid would certainly put a damper on the naysayers.