I know what you're thinking. Two basketball posts in a row? Isn't there any football news to talk about? It's June. I'm taking what I can get. Work with me here.

Like I said on Saturday, the hiring of Lewis Preston to join Ed DeChellis' coaching staff didn't make much sense to me. I can see why Ed would jump at the chance to bring him on board, but it didn't make sense to me why a successful young coach by all appearances would make a sideways move from a national basketball powerhouse like Florida to join a traditionally losing program like Penn State. Something just isn't adding up here.

It would be easy to draw the conclusion that Preston was unceremoniously dismissed from the Florida program. The fact that Billy Donovan needed just one day to find a replacement  further fuels the speculation. And it's no secret that Donovan was not happy with his team last year.

"It's in front of our guys, what it takes to win," Donovan said. "For whatever reason, I haven't brought it out in them. They're not committed to it. But I'm not necessarily really that excited about these guys being sophomores, to be honest. I don't think people change a whole lot, and I don't think you've seen the basketball team change at all this year. So it's hard for me to get overly thrilled or excited."

 

If you can't tell, Donovan doesn't really like his team. For as much as he tried this season, Donovan could never convince his players to play defense as passionately and hard as they play offense. During the regular season, the Gators ranked 10th in the SEC in field-goal percentage defense, ninth in 3-point percentage defense, 11th in blocked shots and dead last in steals.

  

The Crimson Tide, who lost 11 of their 16 SEC games during the regular season, made 13 of their first 17 shots. In a span of barely two minutes midway through the first half, Alabama forward Alonzo Gee scored on a pair of alley-oop dunks to make the score 38-14.

  

"I think we have some talent issues on the defensive end of the floor, foot-speed-wise, that sometimes is not all their fault," Donovan said. "But I think we have a commitment issue, too, which bothers me as a coach because I just got done coaching a group the last two years that was so committed. And to be with this group, I don't think just because they're going to be another year older that all of a sudden, everything gets resolved. I don't see that."

Is Donovan making Preston out to be the scapegoat in all of this? It would appear so if you ask Florida insiders. The link goes to a premium article so I can't quote it, but in a nutshell it mentions that Preston was never Donovan's first choice to join his coaching staff and from day one there was conflict between the two men. The article suggests that Preston is a "players coach" incapable of dropping the hammer and inflicting discipline when needed. Something that doesn't sit well with Donovan as his comments above suggest.

But when there is a scandal within 1000 miles of the Lasch Building you can bet David Jones is on the case. Credit Jones for tracking down Billy Donovan and getting his take on Lewis Preston.

"He's a high-class, high-integrity guy," Donovan said Saturday by cell phone from the Philadelphia airport, where he happened to be making a connection to an event in Richmond. "He's as hard a worker as anybody I've been around. I think a lot of that comes from his military background at VMI and his upbringing.

"You don't always have to recruit the most talented guys. Our national championship teams are evidence of that. Joakim Noah and Al Horford were seen as project big men. Taurean Green was thought of as someone maybe not good enough to play at Florida.

"The real trick for Lewis will be uncovering some of these kids, evaluating and projecting them, guys who can form a team that can take Penn State to a different level. I think he's going to be able to uncover guys just from his work ethic."

Well, he didn't throw him under the bus so that's good, but I find the "real trick" comment interesting. Donovan goes out of his way to mention Preston's fabulous work ethic, but then he kind of ends on a jab. Is the "real trick" comment meant to suggest Preston lacks an eye for talent? Preston joined Florida just prior to them winning their second national championship. The seniors on that squad were already well established by then. The freshman that Donovan spoke so poorly of above were recruited and brought into the program during Preston's time there.

So let's say for a moment that Preston was run out of Florida. It doesn't change the fact that he is an outstanding hire for Penn State. He had an extremely productive career as a big man at VMI. We desperately need big men on our team. And now we have a member on our staff that can walk into a kid's school or living room and flash that national championship ring. He can look a kid in the eye and tell him he knows what it takes to get one of them. Maybe you need more than that at Florida, but at Penn State that will go a long way. And even if he isn't the best at developing NBA talent ask yourself this: How many players have we sent to the NBA in the past decade? He can't be any worse.

Penn State coach Ed DeChellis today announced the addition of former University of Florida and Notre Dame assistant Lewis Preston to the Nittany Lion basketball coaching staff, filling the vacancy left by the departure of Hilliary Scott for the head coaching position at Lynchburg College. Preston will assume his new position on June 4.

"We are very excited to welcome Lewis to Penn State and our coaching staff," DeChellis said. "He is an outstanding young coach and a very highly regarded national recruiter with a terrific background in basketball as both a coach and a player. We think he is really a perfect fit with our players and staff and are looking forward to having him join our basketball family."

"I'm really excited about the opportunity to come and work with Coach DeChellis and his staff at Penn State," Preston said. "I look forward to the challenge and the opportunity to help make the Nittany Lions a force to reckon with in the Big Ten."

Preston spent the last two years as an assistant coach on Billy Donovan's staff at Florida and before that spent six years under Mike Brey at Notre Dame. Florida won the second of its back-to-back national championships in Preston's first year on the Gators' staff where he was an integral part of Florida's recruiting, scouting, game preparation and on-court teaching.

Ok I have a confession to make. My first thought when I read this bio was "What's wrong with this guy?" I mean, he's a young, successful, up and coming coach with two national championship rings on his fingers. Why in the world would he leave Florida to make a sideways move to a perennial losing program like Penn State? I figured there must be some kind of scandal forcing him to leave Florida. It just doesn't make sense.

So I did a google news search. Nothing seedy there. So then I checked on some Florida message boards. If there was any dirt on the guy that's the place to find it. But they all say he's a standup guy. Huh.

One thing to consider is that Preston has been looking around at head coaching jobs lately, most notably with Coastal Carolina where he had a brief stint as an assistant years ago. Maybe Billy Donovan got irritated with his top assistant going on job interviews instead of recruiting trips. Or maybe Preston is being groomed to take over for Ed should the Nittany Lions not make the post season this year. But let's not think about such things.

This makes no sense to me, but who am I to argue? Way to go Tim Curley and Ed. Preston had an outstanding playing career at VMI as well as an excellent coaching record at Notre Dame and Florida. My biggest gripe with Penn State in recent years has been the lack of effective low post players. Preston has proven to be especially effective in recruiting and developing low post players. So early returns are this is an outstanding hire. I have to agree. Welcome to Penn State, Lew.

So you probably know by now that the Penn State men's hoops team lost to Illinois in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament bringing our season to an end. I was going to give you a breakdown of the game, but let me sum it up this way; The game was basically a microcosm of our season. We struggled to find our way in the beginning. We started to get it together, but then we suffered some setbacks and dug ourself a hole. We rallied in the closing minutes, but ultimately we fell just short of reaching our goal.

Before the season Ed said our goal was to win the Big Ten and go to the NCAA tournament. Obviously we fell pretty short of that goal. But there is no crying in Happy Valley today. For the sun is rising over Mount Nittany and showering light upon this once downtrodden program. For the first time in a long time, there is hope surrounding this program.

I said the other day that this is Talor Battle's team. He's only a freshman, but he has already shown the ability to lead this team and take over a game. Today he had 17 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists. He does it all, and when he learns how to make his teammates better he's going to be incredible.

Jeff Brooks struggled for much of the season as he seemed hesitant and lacked confidence. After Geary Claxton went down he was thrown into the fire and forced to take on more minutes. For a while it looked like he regressed and his minutes began to tail off. But a few weeks ago something clicked. He stopped thinking and just started having fun and playing basketball again. The results have been amazing as his production dramatically improved. Today he finished with 8 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 assists before fouling out after just 29 minutes of play. The focus for him this offseason will be to add bulk and strength to his 6'8" 205 lb frame.

Another freshmen who made great strides late in the season was David Jackson. Late in the year he turned up the aggressiveness at urging of the coaches. He crashed the boards harder and took open shots he was turning down earlier in the season. He reached his peak against Indiana when he recorded his first career double-double. Today he added 9 points and 6 rebounds.

But it wasn't all freshmen that sparked this team. The contribution of Stanley Pringle cannot be overlooked. Early in the year he provided an instant spark off the bench. His speed took a lot of teams by surprise, but early on he was often out of control and drove the length of the court just to turn it over. Later in the year he settled down and learned how to control that speed. That's when he became dangerous driving the lane and dishing the ball off to his teammates under the basket. His outside shooting along with his penetration ability gave defenses plenty to think about. He and Battle make a dangerous backcourt combination.

Indeed the future is bright next year. Joining these fabulous freshmen will be a couple of big men in Billy Oliver and Andrew Ott. And don't forget Jamelle Cornley will be back and healthy in time for the season.

But today wasn't all bad news for Penn State. Early this evening Ed Dechellis undoubtedly had a smile on his face when Chris Babb called him to commit to Penn State. The 6'5" 205 lb swing man is reportedly a very good ball handler and perimeter defender. But he has the size and strength to crash the boards as well. And he has no shortage of offense as he averages an impressive 31 points per game for his high school in Arlington, TX. This is a fantastic addition for the team and a player that should be able to step on the court and play right away. After a year of adjusting next season he'll be poised to assume a starting two guard role after Danny Morrissey and Stanley Pringle graduate. Even though we lost today, it's hard to imagine our future looking any brighter.

UPDATE: David Jones has the story on Chris Babb's commitment.

Who would have thought a few weeks ago that we would be sitting here with a chance to actually play a post season game after the Big Ten Tournament? Yet here we are. We have a 15-15 record and two impressive wins on our resume. In order to qualify for the post season we have to win our first game against the Illinois Fighting Illini.

In the first game between the two this season the Nittany Lions pulled off a 68-64 win in front of an orange clad sellout crowd in Champaign. Penn State fell down by nine points early and the hostile crowd tried to stomp them into submission. But the team in blue stayed calm and chipped away. They simply outhustled the Illini by outrebounding them 45-22. But Penn State needed double-doubles from both Cornley and Claxton in order to pull out the win. They won't be able to rely on that this week. And they will have to contain freshman guard Demetri McCamey who torched them for 18 points in the first game and has been really coming on strong as a scorer of late.

In the second game between the two teams the Nittany Lions had to get by without their star, Geary Claxton. The huge rebound advantage in the first game became a 25-33 deficit. Jamelle Cornley struggled through a sore knee to score just six points. Both teams struggled to score, but Talor Battle came through in the clutch with nine straight points to close out the game including two high pressure free throws in the closing seconds. Trent Meachum led the Illini with 11 points while the ever dangerous Shaun Pruitt added 10.

Statistically these two teams are pretty evenly matched with no team holding a clear advantage in any one category. Illinois appears to have the better defense and better rebounding, but Penn State shoots better from three point range. And believe it or not, Penn State actually shoots better than Illinois from the free throw line. Who knew that was possible? Illinois is dead last in the conference in free throw percentage shooting just over 60%. Don't think it's a huge advantage. We're only shooting 62%.

Now if Penn State is going to win this game they're going to have to do it without Claxton or Cornley. The fab four freshmen pulled off the shocking upset against Indiana last weekend, but, I have to be honest, I'm not very optimistic about this one. These kids play pretty well at home, but they haven't proven they can show up on the road where we've lost seven in a row since Claxton went down. And the sad thing is we've lost those seven games by an average of 18 points. I think this will be a close game, but I fear beating the same team three times in one season may be too much to ask.

The game will be played on Thursday at 2:30 PM on ESPN2. So set your TiVo or play hooky from work if you can. This may be your last chance to see the Nittany Lions play this year. The winner gets to play Purdue on Friday. So, yay.

Get it? Hoosier Daddy? Cuz it sounds like "Who's your daddy?" That's funny stuff right there.

You know what else is funny? 68-64 in overtime, baby. And that's without Claxton or Cornley. That's with four freshmen logging most of the minutes. That's friggin' funny. You know what else is funny? Visiting other schools' blogs and reading stuff like this.

Yup. Crappy old Penn State with no Claxton, no Cornley, no offense, no defense. Just another speed bump on our way to the postseason. Congrats, Indiana. You took the Nittany Lions for granted and probably cost yourself three or four seeds in the NCAA tournament. The rest of the Big Ten better stand up and take notice. These young Nittany Lions are pretty good, and they're learning how to win.

Who would have thought seven conference wins was possible with no Claxton and a one legged Cornley? Yet here we are. Five straight home wins to close out the season. We've locked up the #7 seed in the Big Ten Tournament meaning we'll probably play Illinois, a team we've beaten twice already, in the first round. We're back to 0.500. Win our first game and we've guaranteed a 0.500 season. With two wins over ranked opponents coupled with a strong finish to the season I think we have a good case for the NIT. Great great win today. Way to go, Lions!

So I'm in this small town in northern central Pennsylvania tonight. Of course my hotel room has 20 channels to choose from on television and not one of them is the Big Ten Network. So I head "downtown" as the locals call it. I strategically park my car in a location where I can hit to all four bars "downtown" without walking more than 100 yards. I check out the first two bars. No Big Ten Network. I walk into the third bar and notice they have two televisions set up with Dish Network. Paydirt.

I sit down, get an order of wings and a beer. It's only 8 PM so I watch the second half of the Duke-Virginia game. 9 PM rolls around and the old geezer at the bar, who is holding the remote control, turns on Law and Order. Great. I flag down the bar tender and ask her if we can watch the Penn State basketball game. She asks the old geezer if she can change the channel. He's obviously annoyed, but mumbles something under his breath, lets out a grunt, and relinquishes the controller. Victory!

The Penn State men's basketball team was not so fortunate. The final score looks horrible, but I didn't really think they played that bad. Some nights there is nothing you can do, and tonight was one of those nights. They only had 10 turnovers. They were getting good shots, it's just that nothing was falling. Penn State shot a dismal 29.6% from the floor. It didn't help that Cornley didn't play. He's basically our entire inside game. Wisconsin dominated the boards by a 39-23 margin.

On the flip side Wisconsin played a perfect game. They executed extremely well constantly finding the open man who inevitably made the open shot. Even though Penn State was getting killed it was kind of a joy to see the Badgers playing the game so well. They could really do some damage in the tournament if they play like that.

So nobody expected us to win that game and we didn't disappoint them. I couldn't listen to the sound in the bar so I don't know what's wrong with Cornley yet. Hopefully he'll be good to go in time for Indiana this weekend.

	Go State!
Penn State 14-14 (6-10)		Wisconsin Badgers 24-4 (14-2)

Call me crazy, but I have a good feeling about tonight. Things are very upbeat in State College. We're on a two game winning streak and I like what I'm hearing from the Penn State players.

Meanwhile, Purdue was upset by Ohio State last night effectively laying out the red carpet for Wisconsin to cruise to a number one seed in the Big Ten tournament. This has Badger Nation a bit overconfident.

Uh, does anyone care to remember Illinois in 2006? Nobody gave Penn State a chance against the Illini who were ranked #6 in the country and riding a bagillion game home winning streak. The Nittany Lions went into Champaign with nothing to lose and came out with a win. Let's hope that can happen again tonight.

The game will be televised at 9 PM on the Big Ten Network. I'm traveling this week so I'm going to try to find a bar to watch the game. Have at it in the open thread.

Go State! Beat Wisconsin!

BSD is back with the Big Ten Power Rankings after sitting out last week. It's been an interesting couple of weeks to say the least. Who would have guessed at this point in the season that Ohio State would be riding a four game losing streak and Penn State would be on a winning streak?

Here is the Boxscore

When Geary Claxton went down with the ACL tear against Wisconsin, everyone said the torch was passed and this was now Jamelle Cornley's team. Maybe it was for a while. But not anymore. This team is Talor Battle's team now.

Every team has a few good players. Some have more than others. But for every 100 good players there is one special player, and not many teams have those. Special players can take over a game. They will the ball into the basket when a big score is needed. They seem oblivious to pain and injuries. They come up with a big rebound or an important steal when the game is on the line. And they make their teammates better. Last night I became convinced that Talor Battle is one of those players. The sensational freshman took over the game scoring 28 points on 10-of-13 shooting (7-of-9 from the arc) with 13 rebounds and 6 assists, all career highs. It was his first career double-double.

You don't need to know anything more about his importance to this team than what happened in the second half. At the 12:50 mark he drove the lane and got nailed by a Michigan big man. He landed awkwardly on his tailbone and laid on the court for a minute as the entire Jordan Center held their breath. When he limped off to the training room it looked like our season was over for the second time this year. Penn State went from holding a slim five point lead to the short end of a 49-47 score. But then in the third minute Battle rose again emerging from the locker room telling Ed he was good to go.

On Michigan's first possession he grabbed a defensive rebound and made a three pointer on our end. Two possessions later he sank another three. Then he pulled down another rebound and assisted Mike Walker on his three. He repeated it two possessions later. Rebound, pass to Walker, three. Then he sank another three of his own. After he returned with 8:30 to go Penn State went on a 15-0 run to put the game out of reach. And the angels sang Halleluiah.

As I said, Mike Walker was an integral part of that 15-0 run and the win in general. It seemed only right on senior day that he would get the start have a great game scoring 15 points. Senior Brandon Hassell also got the start. He only scored two points in 24 minutes, but it was a huge two points. Michigan was trying to make a late comeback pulling within seven points with 1:30 to go. Hassell reached in on Manny Harris on a pick and roll and poked the ball loose at the top of the key. He streaked out to midcourt and took the ball in uncontested for a dunk.

The entire team seemed to have a renewed effort in rebounding last night. I've been pretty frustrated in that regard lately. Not that they're not rebounding well. Just that there hasn't been any effort in times. There have been too many possessions where Cornley throws up a 15 foot jumper and the rest of the team cuts back on defense not even trying to rebound. But last night the guards were in there mixing it up with the big guys and getting results. Battle's 13 rebounds led the team effort in pulling down 37 rebounds to Michigan's 31. Cornley added 10 rebounds of his own despite missing the last 14 minutes in the first half. Say what you want about Ed's coaching ability, but the man is a class act. He sat his star player for three quarters of the first half after Cornley received a technical foul for arguing an offensive charge.

The boxscore didn't show it, but I thought DJ Jackson looked more aggressive last night. In fact the whole team looked more aggressive. Pringle was focused on driving the lane and dishing the ball. Jeff Brooks pulled in 5 rebounds. Great effort.

This was a good win on a few levels. It snapped an 11 game losing streak to the Wolverines for one thing. It also marked our sixth conference win and our fourth in a row at home, both highs in the Ed DeChellis era. It sure looked like we were left for dead when Geary Claxton went down against Wisconsin. I honestly didn't think we would win another game this year, but they proved me wrong winning four games since then. And with four freshmen seeing serious minutes and everyone but Claxton, Hassell, and Walker coming back next year the future is looking bright for the Nittany Lions.

	Go State!
Penn State 13-14 (5-10)		Michigan Wolverines 9-19 (5-11)

It's pretty evident that barring an improbable run through the Big Ten tournament in a few weeks we're not going to the post season. So all we're playing for now is pride. I'll probably be watching the game on a time delay tonight, but for those of you watching it at 8 PM on the BTN you can take part in the open thread.