#15 R.P.I. Penn.State vs. #1o5 R.P.I. Virginia Tech: 

Virginia Tech men’s basketball won again.

The Hokies won again. Did Eye mention the now-still-perfected Fighting Gobblers won, again? The O.d.u. 2nd-half did not o-dee on O&M rebounding and the optics were a bit outcome blurry for a little closer than we closing expected minute or three. Tho’ we did move to 4-nil on the Tech Triumph over the Monarchs. Now we catch the Nittany Lions of 4 up vs. 0 down Penn.State fame. Who -likewise- got a first-round scare put into them as Furman left the thorn in their paw for the nobody told Furman (or: O.d.u.) to just lay down and Old-Yeller underdog, behave. So, someone needs to raise their level and play better to get to the Charleston Classic Championship game here. Nonetheless, what you wanna know is who that someone is and by how much, rights? Read on… to finds… out!

Penn.State Head Coach: Micah Shrewsberry: Age=46, 17–17, .5oo overall, and @P.s.u. Has a rep’ for Guard-play and the modern-era perimeter.
$2,000,000.oo

Baller Shrewsberry attended Cathedral High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, and played collegiately at Hanover College where he was a three-year starter and tri-captain while leading the league in free throw percentage and assists during the 1998–99 season.

After his playing career, Shrewsberry had assistant coaching stops at Wabash and DePauw before joining the coaching staff at Marshall for two seasons under Ron Jirsa. In 2oo5, he was named the head coach at Indiana University South Bend, where he served until 2oo7 when he joined Brad Stevens’ staff at Butler. While with the Bulldogs, Shrewsberry was part of the program’s back-to-back NCAA national runner-up squads.

In 2o11, Shrewsberry would join Purdue’s coaching staff where he was credited for helping lead the Purdue Boilermakers to 8.74 turnovers per game, a nation-leading effort. He would reunite with Stevens in the NBA ranks, joining the Boston Celtics coaching staff, and helping the Celtics to five playoff appearances, including back-to-back Eastern Conference Finals. On May 9, 2o19, Shrewsberry returned to Purdue as an associate head coach.

On March 15, 2o21, Shrewsberry was named as head coach at Penn State, the 14th head coach in program history.

Shrewsberry.edu graduated from Cathedral High School. He earned a B.A. from Hanover College and a master’s degree in sports management from Indiana State University.

Daddy Shrew’ and his wife, Molly, have four children, Braeden, Nicholas, Caitlin, and Grace.

P.s.u. at a glance:

• 8th best in 3-point percentage!!!
• 6th best in Effective FG percentage!!!
• 10th best in FG percentage!!!
• 15th most 3-point attempts/game!!!
• Grate shooting team 1o1!!
• 61st best in D-rebounding.
• 247th in Swats.
• 322nd in Turnovers forced/game!
• 337th most in FT-makes!
• 347th on the o-Glass! (Unsurprisingly).
• NO injuries listed. (‘Thx” @Coach God).

Returning Starters=2

Penn.State Strengths:

• VERY experienced squadron here folks, six, that’s (6) rotation guys are at least 4th-year seniors or more. Over 30 years’ worth of work if you are keeping score @home.
• This is kinda, semi, sorta close to a 4 or a 5-Guard line-up. Not technically, tho’ very 1, 2, 3 centric.
• One number double-two (#22), Jalen Pickett, seems mo’ like an off-G, who is technically playing on the ball at the One. Jalen is a: 6′4″, 2o9 lb., senior+ year baller who took his cv19 elective year. He is also your leading Lion scorer (14.3 ppg) your leading Lion rebounder (6 rpg) and your leading Lion assister (9.o apg). That’s all, he sucks, cut him now! Siena veteran baller on the transfer where he netted you nearly 16 ppg on low-to-mid 30s percentage-wise career-wise from range. More a scoring lead-G than a pure S/G itself. Said to be an Ironman triathlete in waiting, and routinely plays most not all of the game. Also said to have very snappy handles on the rock. Was a three-time first-team All-MAAC selection. Was named 2o19-2o MAAC Player of the Year and 2o18-19 MAAC Rookie of the Year. That sucks too. Balled at 3 high schools in 3 states and won one Class AA title for it. Did Prep after that as well. That is a lot b4 college to me. Good guy to go buy everyone’s brews— looks lowercase (if not mid) 30’s in person. This Pickett-fence smile a lot, gotta give him that. Lindy’s does rate Pickett as their Top Playmaker for the Big-1o. So, maybe he is mo’ of a Pt.Guard than the One in me could see? Tho’ Eye do foresee an overseas export-flavored career. Not stiff, tho’ not an athletic dynamo and that prolly fits better across the pond.
• That said… Lindy’s is pretty high on the rest of the 4 or 5 Guard look. 6′2″, 2oo lb., senior+, Camren Wynter G; Andrew Funk G 6′5″, 2oo lb., senior+; and 6′5″, 23o lb., senior+, Myles Dread G. You do see what Jimi Hendrix are you “experienced” meant now, right?
• Wynter is an all-League caliber Drexel transfer true-One. He is 2nd in making (12.2 ppg) with 3 rpg, 3 apg, and 1.2 spg. That married to: 56.0% from the floor, engaged to: 85.7% from the charity stripe, and dating: 44.4% long is pretty good courting. Albeit not from a pure riffler himself. Any two-timer of a first-team All-CAA transfer One is a good get. And Wynter is coming got you 16-n-change (ppg) when healthy @Drexel, tho’ he was dinged-up a bit as well (Coach God bless). Camren had a shooter/distributor rep’ in scholastic terms; his old-man was a starter at ‘Nova and he is working on his Master’s now. Props on all dat.
• Andrew ‘grand-master’ Funk is prolly not related to Terry thereof. He is however dropping you: 12.0 ppg with 3.0 rpg and 2.3 apg on 46% from deep. He went for ≈18 ppg for Bucknell last year and was a 2nd-string all-conference G for it. He was also merely the: 2o22 Patriot League Scholar-Athlete of the Year; and pocketed four, that’s (4) other all-something-or-another .edu awards along the Bucknell Bison way. Ta-tanka indeed or in spades. Penta.edu props here! With no word yet from k.Costner. Won a Philly, Pa., based Class 5A PIAA state championship bling, and every single brother (3) has been a G at the D-1 level. Clearly shooting D.N.A. lives here, N.b.a. or not. Prolly will kill it at your local “Y” in pick-up dead-eye ball for years to come.
• Dread is said to be a high-mileage, guy. He has been at P.s.u. thru thick, thicker, and thickest. Oldest guy on the team as a bulky looking Two-G. D’town Michigan inner-city hommie; and the 10 ppg on a stellar 62.5% so far this year behind the arc is man’s game son! Dread is a durable guy having started every game as an off-G less three in his half-decade and counting P.s.u. career. He won a 2oo8 A.A.U. national championship, then won a Gonzaga (H.S.) national championship, and then was named: 2018 Gatorade Player of the Year for Washington D.C. Dangnation. That is quite a career right there. And he is a nationally published poetries, having won several poetry awards for it to boot. wow!

  

Penn.State Weaknesses:

• They are really missing Big, John Harrar in the middle. This is a very backcourt tilting squad in a black-n-blue more traditional 1 through 5 league.

Nittany Lion Den: (depth=)

6′1o″, 237 lb., rookie-year Kebba Njie F leads P.s.u. in boards worked (6 rpg) at 12.7 mpg played; wow! He nets you 6.7 ppg on bunnies and putbacks at a 61% clip. And oh yes… he is only P.s.u.’s second, that’s (2nd) highest recruit, ever. All-time baa-bee! That’s all. His whole fam’ ran ball somewhere at some level of play. **** or 4-start unanimous recruit who was ranked 82nd to 115th by varying services in domestic terms. Physically ready with a real strapping wide-ass 7′2″ wingspan and broad shoulders. A physically good-looking kid who will be looking to do mo’ and mo’ as the year wears on. I am 2o26 curious here.

Caleb Dorsey is a 6′7″, 239 lb., Junior season thumper of a P/F upfront and down-low. 7.3 ppg with 4.3 rpg on 60% is not the worst relief work if you can get it. Same as above, the whole fam’ has played D-1 ball somewhere. Dorsey won a lotta regional level Keystone State (Pa.) hoop awards. May have just slightly underachieved in collegiate terms for it. Kinda seems to want to play a Euro’ or Stretch-F game despite his at least 11ov onboard powerhaus look. That all said, he is vastly better this year than n.Lion before; so maybe the light is coming on here?

Illation, conclusion(s) and OPT digits:

Number of Lions who could growl @Tech=5 to 6.5.

the takeaway:
The takeaway here is…

…it is hard to be super taken with either club’s opening efforting in the Charleston Classic. Tho’ you gotta give a little love to O.d.u. and Furman. They came to play and they {sic: both} surely played the duration to win.

Whereas P.s.u. and V.P.I. both got up and then promptly let up a mite.

That dog will not second-round dawgg-fight.

Someone has to advance here… be that baller (Leadership) or top-down (Hectoring).

 ***

Our handy-dandy friend the so-called Forum Guide of Graham Houston fame is calling for a December ask back.

The annualized year-to-date vitals say that… Vah.Tech is up +1% in shooting percentage margin (with virtually identical O% & D% markers here); with P.s.u. up nearly +4% in 3-point percentage margin (thanks to better shooting and defensing of the trifecta alike), and Penn.State is up +1 carrom in rebounding margin for the year-to-date. (Neither team is negative, tho’ I am positive that neither team seems back-boarding epic so far).

The most recent 5-game metrics say that… in shooting percentage margin, in 3-point percentage margin, and in rebounding margin we ask again next week.

Armchair Pt.Guard’s:

VeeTee is up a nominal +1% at the charity stripe for the year.
Both are 1.oo in Switzerland or as Neutrals thus far.
VeeTee is up +1 in R&R.

The Call...

No.123 Net Ranking Penn.State vs. no.63 Net Ranking Virginia Tech:

Vegas is calling for… nothing yet.

Still looking for their swagg here in the 3o4.

---

–oOo–

The closer...

…this one seems closer to me -on paper- than either opener should have been.

That said, Eye studied this for a while trying to separate these two… and it was pretty dang hard to parse Big-1o vs. A.c.c. hairs here; at least for me.

P.s.u. is a little mo’ backcourt reliant— or a bit less versatile.
VeeTee is a little mo’ well ’rounded— tho’ still something of a shooting team.

The one tipping point could be… can we stand to dump it inside vs. the lowercase or smaller 3 or 4 or rarely nearly 5-G n.Lion line-up(s)?

🦃 = 🏀 = 🦁

We should have an edge there, and we need to go’on and fight BIG here. As their experience level(s) really tied this one up to me. That would seem to help on an N.b.a. back-to-back less than 24-hour turn (in our case).

Tough one to call… these two might very well go 2-3 or 3-2 if they ran five or to the full seven games if they ran that.

So, tho’ tempted to call for overtime, methinks someone warms up a bit chilly late-Autumn mo’.

 

(55% confidence interval)
Virginia Tech=64, Penn.State=61

please support the VT F.C.A.!

“LETS GO!”

“Hokies!”

 bourbonstreet**