Archive for the 'ed dechellis' Category
June 8th, 2009 by Happy Hour Valley
EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m aware that Stephen Obeng-Agayapong did not participate in the ESPN.com chat with Ed DeChellis and that it was actually some smartass poster over at BSD. For humor’s sake though, please play along at home.
For those of you who missed it, Ed DeChellis had a brief 20-minute chat on ESPN.com today about the basketball program’s recent success and what the future may entail. It’s safe to say, the relevancy of Penn State basketball has become further enhanced as even incoming football players are starting to take notice, as evidenced by Stephen Obeng-Agyapong (pictured above) making his stoic presence felt in the chat:
Stephen was even kind enough to snap a photo of his reaction to Ed’s answer via web-cam. 
If you look closely enough, you can see a slight grin forming, which means he’s absolutely psyched about the potential of this year’s group of Fighting DeChellises. I can only imagine what his expression might look like upon viewing a Talor Battle man-crushing highlight.
April 14th, 2009 by Happy Hour Valley
The Patriot-News‘ David Jones recently waxed philosophical on the Fighting DeChellises’ NIT title and what it means for the program’s future. It’s also the type of article that deserves its own literary dissection lab, so let’s take a closer look, shall we?
Continue reading ‘Yes, It’s Mid-April. Yes, I’m Still Writing About Basketball.’
April 1st, 2009 by Happy Hour Valley
The Memphis Daily News today released an intriguing article that lists a group of potential candidates to take over the recently vacated Memphis head coaching position in light of John Calipari’s leaving for Kentucky. The article ranks the candidates in order of probability and at the top of the list are guys like USC’s Tim Floyd but Ed DeChellis also gets a mention in the “longshots” category. Just seeing DeChellis’ name associated with the Memphis coaching job makes one take a step back and realize just how highly regarded he has become in the college basketball coaching fraternity for creating a culture of winning at a basketball graveyard such as Penn State.
Anyway, I’m done with the spiel. Click here to see it for yourself
March 5th, 2009 by Happy Hour Valley
BEFORE:
AFTER:
No amount of words can describe how high on cloud nine I truly am right now…My dad and I held season tickets during the first year of the BJC’s existence in 1996 and even though that team was ranked in the Top 25 most of the season, I can’t recall them ever pulling off such clutch/dramatic victories like this team has done several times this season. No matter what happens from hereon out, “the shot” by Talor Battle has earned its rightful place in PSU basketball lore.
This team is so effin’ close to locking up a bid and they could accomplish it as soon as this Saturday with a win in Iowa City. The challenge in that game will be pulling off the quickest hangover cure known to mankind and not succumbing to a Hawkeyes team that has had so many “close but no cigar” moments at home and is past due for actually winning such a game.
In the meantime though, you know what time it is: GOOOOOOO PUNCH!!!
December 6th, 2008 by Happy Hour Valley
How best to describe the Fighting DeChellises’ inexplicable letdown against Temple? As Dr. Cosby himself would put it, it was a bunch of filth, flarn, flarn, filth.
I should’ve known better than to have faith in this team being able to turn the corner coming off of a big road win. This one falls on ED as well as the players for coming into this game unprepared and out of sync in front of a crowd expecting big things. If you think these type of craptastic performances are going to go away when the Big Ten slate hits us, then I’ve got Eskimo villages in New York City to sell to you…
There’s barely a semblance of an inside game, particularly on the defensive end, and the backcourt becomes a hell of a lot weaker without Stanley Pringle in there. Danny Morrissey is a streaky shooter whose performance depends on how many wide open looks he get, and tonight he got zero because Temple’s strategy involved locking down on him and rendering him useless.
This brings me to my next question, why is ED so reluctant to go to his bench when the situation is dire? Could Woodyard and Babb done any worse out there? If he’s actually relying on a 7-man rotation to carry him through the season then we’re in deeper shit than initially thought.
Garbage like this has become an all-too-familiar sight under ED and today’s game was yet another painful, glaring, piece of evidence as to why he’s not the man to take PSU basketball to the next level.
February 12th, 2008 by Happy Hour Valley
I realize I have yet to say anything about the Terrelle Pryor situation. Really, that’s because there isn’t much to say that hasn’t already been regurgitated over and over again. It’s pretty much down to us and Ohio State at this point and one can only hope that Tom Bradley and (*gasp*) JayPa’s going over the top (Stallone-style) in terms of pursuing TP will make the difference whenever a final decision is made.
In other news…
- Did anyone happen to catch the Clemson-UNC game Sunday Night? Unfortunately, my shitty cable system doesn’t get FSN so I was forced to follow via ESPN.com’s GameTracker. Talk about a heartbreaker though, Clemson was winless in Chapel Hill in 52 tries and looked to be well on their way to finally breaking their futility streak, leading a depleted, point guard-less UNC team by double digits for practically the entire game…Until the bottom fell out in the final few minutes of regulation and UNC rallied like mad to ultimately win in 2 OTs. This now the second time this season that Clemson has lost to UNC when they seemingly had the victory in hand, two losses that come Selection Sunday, could bite them in the ass. There’s a million different analogies you can use to describe such heartache, so use your imagination wisely…
- While I’m still on the subject of college hoops, ESPN’s Pat Forde has a “coaches on the hot seat” section in his latest column but a certain head coach isn’t listed on it. Perhaps, they didn’t get the memo that PSU is back to its usual ways of losing to crappy teams on the road that they should be beating?
- Maryland and Virginia primaries are being voted on right now, and my fingers are crossed in hopes that Barack Obama will continue to build off the February momentum he’s managed to gain, he’s got the better chance at knocking off John McCain come November than the ultra-polarizing Billary ever would.
February 9th, 2008 by Happy Hour Valley
PSU still can’t beat Michigan in a sport that matters and Chris Bell and Phil Taylor don’t want to go to class
More news whenever I’m a less than pissed off enough to take a leak on the Lasch Building.
February 5th, 2008 by Happy Hour Valley
Well, the Fighting DeChellises are about to tip-off at Purdue in hopes of faring better than the 22-point clusterfuck of a loss suffered at the BJC a couple of weeks ago.
The big question of course, is: How will this team respond after pulling off the biggest win of the season Saturday night against Michigan State? If you’re thinking along the lines of Rants From The District, not too well because he is picking Purdue to cover the spread as 11-point favorites.
I, on the other hand, have a feeling that PSU will beat the spread and also hang tough with the Boilermakers for most of the game before faltering in the final 5 minutes of the game…Although the last time I made such a prediction it shot “clue goo” right back in my face.
Is that a “raging clue” HHV has? Or is he still excited over last Saturday night’s upset?
RFTD and I remain tied at 7-4 but that is obviously bound to change after tonight. The only question of course, is who will emerge on top…
January 29th, 2008 by Happy Hour Valley
In case you don’t know already, PSU’s athletic department is trying to initiate a cause called “Target Ten” in which the goal is for 10,000 student tickets to be sold for tonight’s nationally televised game (7 PM ET, ESPN) against Ohio State. If this goal is met, then the proceeds will all go to THON.
Sadly, the basketball program is so dismal right now that the Big Ten Network has had to bail our asses out by purchasing 1,000 tickets.
As for the game itself: We’re a 7-point underdog tonight, and given how fucking terrible we’ve been playing lately, that’s a pretty generous line. We’ve put up less than 50 points in two of our last three contests and Ed DeChellis has gotten so desperate, he’s now resorted to starting Stanley Pringle along with Talor Battle to go along with Danny Morrissey in a 3-guard lineup. Meanwhile SENIOR GUARD Mike Walker continues to get sporadic minutes and gets pulled the moment he makes one mistake, no wonder he didn’t take a fucking shot in 14 minutes of play. And even though I didn’t watch the game, I find it hard to believe he didn’t have a couple of open looks during his playing time.
Do I even want to go into details about how dismal rebounding has been? Cornley’s not 100%, the knee injury that sidelined him for most of November is flaring up again and nobody has really stepped up to fill the void. Sure, DJ Jackson and Andrew Jones might pitch in a little, but it hasn’t been nearly enough to prevent a sharp decline.
As to how Ohio State will attack us, pick your poison: Do you want Kosta Koufos and Othello Hunter killing you inside, or would you rather suffer a “barrage of threes” from David Lighty, Jamar Butler, or Jon Deibler? Either way, I see this thing getting rather ugly tonight given our lack of “D” lately.
Anyway, I’m taking OSU to cover the spread and I’m sure Rants From The District will end up doing so as well…If he gets his pick to me in time. Here are the current standings in our “Contest”
HHV 6-3
RFTD 6-3
As you can see, my attempt to make things interesting by going against common sense and picking PSU to beat the spread at Iowa just for the sake of differing from my competition was another prime example of “When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong.”
January 26th, 2008 by Happy Hour Valley
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.472087&w=425&h=350&fv=videoId%3D103612]
No need to go into details about the abortion that was Wednesday Night’s basketball game against Purdue. It was dispicable on all levels to say the least and it reminded me all too much of the shellackings from middle-of-the-pack Big Ten teams we used to take on a regular basis during the final years of the Jerry Dunn era.
I’m done defending Ed DeChellis, the guy is no doubt a great guy and a great ambassador for PSU who loves his alma mater dearly, but unfortunately that hasn’t meant much as far as results on the court. While I feel the talent has been upgraded from the end of the JD era, the coaching still seems all too familiar from a crap-tastic standpoint. How many more times do we have to see a half-court offense that looks like it’s being run by a bunch of pickup players that just met five minutes ago? How many more times to we have to see quirky substitution patterns? (i.e. Mike Walker getting benched after one dumb mistake but Talor Battle gets kept in the game for as long as he wants, no matter how erratic he gets at times). How many more times to do we have to see a lack of fire/urgency in the the coaching staff and the players? There is no excuse for any of this garbage continuing in Year 5, even with Geary Claxton gone.
Worst of all, how many more times do I have to hear one of our players complain that they’re “not having fun” out there? It feels like deja vu all over again…This program has hit a brick wall and with the lack of commitments from the current recruiting class I can only see things sliding backwards from here.
Iit’s time for Tim Curley to swallow his pride, admit the safe, “in the family” hire didn’t work, and shell out the cash for a known coach with a pedigree for winning, recruiting, and getting the most out of his players. This program needs a shot in the arm like nobody’s business…