More on Fitzpatrick

Though Brian Fitzpatrick may not have made much of an impact during his freshman season, he certainly isn't leaving quietly. Below are some interesting additional excerpts from my interviews with Fitzpatrick, his high school coach, and Zack Rosen that didn't make it into this week's edition of the Summer Pennsylvanian:

Fitzpatrick

On why he chose Bucknell:

"There’s gonna be 14 kids on the basketball team; you don’t have to deal with 24 kids. I think at one point, Penn had nine kids coming in next year. If me and Carson [Sullivan] were still here, there would be 25 kids on the basketball team with one senior. I just don’t understand that. What are you gonna do if the coaches threaten us that they’re gonna cut half the team? If I was a junior or sophomore, I’d probably stay, but I’m a freshman. I had other places to go, schools that would take me."

"I feel like at Bucknell, they recruit more. They find guys that are the right fit, whereas at Penn, they’re like, 'Let’s bring them all in. Let’s see what happens. We don’t really need him, but bring him in, and see if he works hard, he might pass the other guy that we thought was better at one point.' I just don’t agree with that ... It’s just good that I found a better fit for me, and Jerome [Allen] can go get somebody else or whatever. I don’t know."

On the expanding roster:

"I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept the roster at 20-something guys; I wouldn’t be surprised if they cut kids; I wouldn’t be surprised if kids transfer; I wouldn’t be surprised if kids quit. That’s the way it’s gonna work."

On whether the other freshmen felt the same way he did:

"Carson left mid-year for similar reasons. … They [the freshmen] thought they deserved a chance too. We didn’t really have a backup point guard, so I think Malcolm [Washington] sometimes felt like he deserved a shot."

On why he chose Penn originally:

"Penn is Penn. That’s really all you need to say. It’s in the Big 5, NCAA Championships, they play in the Palestra, the weight room they built is absolutely gorgeous, the facilities are nice, it’s an Ivy League school but they care about sports. I originally thought they’d only bring in me and Carson. At the time, they told me I was their guy. It’s Penn, that was the big selling point."

On where he's finding motivation going forward:

"The whole freshmen class [of 2013] is terrible, that’s what everybody said. Bring in the new freshmen, bring in 9 kids. Just cross that class out because they’re a wash; they’re Glen Miller’s players."

Zack Rosen

On next year's large roster:

"When I was at St. Benedict's [high school], we had two teams every day — we had a prep team and a high school team so basically it was a game every day. And that competition is what really brought us to the next level and got the most out of everybody because you knew that every day you walked into the gym it was gonna be a fight for playing time and every day you had to prove yourself."

"I think a lot of it is about being part of the team and accepting your role on the team and when that role identification happens, on any team, that’s when all the success will come."

On freshmen not getting playing time:

"I had the unique fortune of being able to play through my mistakes freshman year and just being thrown out there. So from my experience, I thank Coach Miller for putting me out there and letting me work through it. Some guys don’t get the same opportunity but I know that if [Fitzpatrick] worked at it, he would have the same opportunity here ... You’ve got to get out there and do it sometimes to learn and grow up as a player and the only way to do it is from being out there."

In response to Fitzpatrick's statement that "we just did a lot of pick and rolls and stuff like every play ... Zack would either score for himself or dish it off to others so we didn’t really have a system, per se, at Penn":

"It’s a process anytime there’s a coaching switch. By the end of the season, I thought we were clicking on a lot of cylinders. ... We’ve got a lot of plays, we do. That’s [Allen's] style. And we try to manipulate and work to our strengths. Obviously, with the switch, we had one week to change and then we were going down to North Carolina to play Davidson and Duke. Over time, I think we really developed how we wanted to play and our style."

Northfield Mount Hermon Coach John Carroll

On Fitzpatrick's potential:

"I think he still can be an all-conference player for Bucknell. ... He’s 6’7, he’s 230, strong, he’s really athletic, he’s got some really good perimeter skills, he battles. So I think he’s close, he just needs to work on that consistency of bringing it every single day, and I think he can accomplish those types of things"