BlueWhiteIllustrated.com - Lions cruise to easy 82-51 exhibition win over Slippery Rock

November 6, 2009

BWI Staff

Ed DeChellis and the Penn State men's basketball team have a recent history of slow starts to the exhibition and non-conference schedule (see: Shippensburg) but had no problem disposing of Slippery Rock, 82-51.

In fact, the Nittany Lions shot out of the gates in front of an estimated attendance of 7,623 fans Friday night at the Bryce Jordan Center.

Cruising to a 19-0 lead in the game's first six minutes, the Nittany Lions made it look easy.

Junior guard Talor Battle, who fought through a stomach ache for most of the game, revealed afterward that he and his teammates were dead-set on taking control of the game early.

"No offense to Slippery Rock but we wanted to come out and really take them right out of the game from the get go," he said. "We joked around that we wanted to be able to rest the last 10 minutes of the game and fortunately enough, we were able to do that because we took care of business and kind of put the game out of reach."

By the halftime buzzer, the Lions had doubled the Rock's score, 46-23, and were able to take advantage of the cushion by giving the team's substantial faction of young players some much-needed experience.

With Battle and Chris Babb leading the scoring with 16 and 12 points each, respectively, true freshman Sasa Borovnjak scored 10 points.

Every player saw action tonight, including freshmen Jermaine Marshall (3 points in 6 minutes) and Tim Frazier (4 points in 19 minutes).

After the game, DeChellis said he was pleased with the performances out of the younger players, noting that his only qualm was with his team's 5-for-24 (20.8 percent) shooting from the perimeter.

"I was pleasantly surprised with those guys," he said. "The only thing I leave here walking out today is, we didn't shoot the ball well from the perimeter. That's the only thing we really didn't do well is shoot the ball from the perimeter.

"Now, I know we can shoot, so, if we couldn't guard or we couldn't rebound and guys are blowing by us defensively, I'd be disappointed, but that didn't happen tonight."

Battle echoed DeChellis' sentiments.

"I think we defended. They played Pitt the other day and had 64 points or something," he said. "We knew they wanted to run fast and shoot a lot of threes but we did a good job contesting on the threes. We had a spurt in the second half defensively for three minutes we really didn't sit down and guard the ball and they made a couple of shots.

"Offensively, I thought we did well. Me, Cam and Chris, we didn't shoot the ball particularly well tonight, but it was just one of those games. But we did a lot of those things well. I'm pleased with our effort."

With tonight's contest the only one of the exhibition season, DeChellis and his coaching staff have the task of getting prepared for the real thing when Penn visits the BJC next Friday night for a 7:30 tip.

According to DeChellis, though, his team is nearly ready to get the season underway.

"The next four or five days are real important. Tomorrow's practice is important. Sunday is real important. Then we've got Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to get ready for Penn so we have to be ready to go," he said. "And they're completely opposite from these guys so it's a change in gears.

"But we've got about what we need to get in. We've got a couple more days where we have to refine some things and add another thing or two, but we can probably play about anybody and have enough in to be solid. But we do have to get one or two more things in, just in case."

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