Ed DeChellis Haters, JUST SHUT UP

I would absolutely love it. just a picture of this dog, with the words “SUCK IT!” above or below it.

If we could increase the wins, but at a loss of $, is that "worth" it?

No, but that’s besides the point. You never hire someone with the design to maintain the status quo and remain net positive in relation to the previous hire—you hire someone to bring in wins, draw interest, and then get people in the seats to increase revenue. It’s this tentative approach to basketball that leaves PSU mired in the lower echelons in spite of a fanbase that would love to support a decent team.

Penn State remains one of the ten highest sports revenue generating universities—this is in spite of the mens basketball program and not in addition to its presence alongside football. Spending an extra $500,000 would allow them to hire all but the most exceptional coaches out there. The Bryce Jordan Center seats 15,000 and regularly gets 8,000 for a game. Bring it to 9,000 per game over a 20 home game season and it takes just $25 a person (including ticket, concessions, souveniers, etc.) to make up that cost. This is a pretty conservative scenario-if football schools like Alabama and Texas A&M can average 9500+ per game then PSU can manage nine thou’.

I don’t for one minute believe the argument concerning the proximity of programs around us makes us less viable. Take a look at Kansas State’s roster. They are in the middle of nowhere, they are a college football-dominated athletic program, they have an extremely limited pool of local players to recruit, and to top it all they are just one hour away from the most imposing basketball program in the Midwest (KU Jayhawks). Still, five of their top eight most productive players are from New York City or Washington, DC. There is no way the argument of local competition can hold up to this. If Kansas State can recruit talent from DC, then Penn State could just as well.

Let’s look at them further. Their record from 1993 to 2005 was comparable to Penn State’s, or even worse. What did they do? They made a big hire in Bob Huggins, who promptly bolted after one year, but he left some great recruiting, then handed the reigns to an untested but now successful coach in Frank Martin. They sit at #9 in the basketball rankings, we sit in last place in the Big Ten. The kids also are out of trouble and remain assets to the community. Does this mean if we make a splashy hire that it will pay off like KSU? Not necessarily, but it’s worth a shot. Get a guy who knows a local recruiting ground like the back of his hand and I’d bet we could get similar results.

But let’s put recruiting, facilities, prestige, and revenue aside for a second. At the end of the day, a good coach can add about 4 points to the final score for their team over a bad coach. A good coach can correspondingly keep the other team from scoring a couple of points. These are generally in things like set plays-particularly coming out of a time out, clock management, and knowing how to massage or abuse the referees. This is ultimately what kills me about DeChellis: the players still heave off-balance shots even after a time out. Their motions look amateurish and don’t lead to high percentage shots. Several players appear to regress over time. His teams sometimes look like they have no idea how to play organized basketball.

There are just too many times when he looks like a bad coach. We shouldn’t reward that with another year, particularly when everything is considered.