BlueWhiteIllustrated.com - Battle leads the way in 70-55 win over Penn

November 13, 2009

Nate Bauer
BlueWhiteIllustrated.com Editor

As time expired on Penn State's 70-55 win against Penn tonight at the Bryce Jordan Center, junior point guard Talor Battle looked over to the student section, raised his arm and gave them a big thumbs up.

With Danny Morrissey watching from the stands, Jamelle Cornley in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and Stanley Pringle playing overseas, this was now fully Battle's team.

With his arm above his head, he smiled as if to say, 'It may not have been pretty, but we're off to a good start, and will be okay.'

Ultimately, his 27 points and 10 rebounds in 39 minutes of action were more than enough to give Ed DeChellis a season-opening win for the fifth straight season.

"Outstanding performance," DeChellis said of Battle. "He got the ball to the rim, made other guys a little bit better. Took the game over when he had to at the end. I thought he was very, very good tonight."

Glen Miller, the fourth-year coach at Penn, saw Battle do exactly what made him a first-team all-Big Ten selection last season and a pre-season all-Big Ten pick this year. His 27 points marked the 17th 20-point game of his career and his 10 rebounds contributed to his fifth career double-double.

All night, he meandered through the Quakers' defense, splitting the big-men for harder-than-it-looks buckets.

"Talor Battle, as you guys all know, he's a terrific player and made a lot of plays for them tonight," Miller said. "He's very poised, shifty with the basketball and you have to really cover him for a long period of time. They really let him make plays, which he does a very good job of doing. He makes his teammates better.

"We didn't have an answer for him, as many teams don't."

Yet, for as good as Battle was, hitting 9-of-12 attempts from the floor despite going just 2-for-8 from beyond the arc, it took a full team effort to get past the Quakers.

Struggling to distance themselves from the Quakers, backup point guard Adam Highberger's two three pointers in the final four minutes of the first half helped to give the Lions a 36-28 lead going into the half.

The second half was Brooks' turn.

His 10 points marked just the junior's fourth-career double-digit scoring game, as he hit a jump shot, two 3-pointers and two free throws in 27 minutes of action.

Clearly energized by his own performance after the game, Brooks, tormented by his own self-doubts throughout his career as a Nittany Lion, said he was thrilled to get off to a good start this season.

"It's big," he said. "I've worked so hard in the off-season and preseason and to come out tonight and have some shots go down, it was pretty big."

When asked how excited he was by it, Brooks said bluntly, 'On a scale of 1 to 10, about a 13.'

Still, the Lions have plenty of hurdles to overcome moving forward.

As a team, they shot well from the floor at 48.1 percent (26-for-54), but struggled from the foul line, hitting just 9-of-17 (52.9 percent), and had just 32 rebounds as a team and only 8 on the offensive glass.

With a quick turnaround over the weekend to face Robert Morris on Monday night at the BJC (7:30 tip, BTN.com), DeChellis said there was plenty to work on between now and then.

"I got a lot of concerns," he said. "We played one game. We didn't rebound it the way we needed to. We didn't shoot free throws the way we needed to. We didn't defend it the way we needed to.

"We got a lot of stuff to work on but it's the first game and I thought we made plays when we needed to make plays."

Penn State NEWS

[More]

Latest Headlines:

Resources:

Font Size:

FEATURED PRODUCT