Zack Rosen begins play at Portsmouth Invitational

Today Zack Rosen will take the next step on his journey to go pro, playing at the four-day Portsmouth Invitational Tournament — a showcase for college basketball's best seniors. Rosen hopes his play at the PIT will earn him an invite to the NBA draft combine in Chicago next month.

The Quakers' star point guard is one of 64 seniors invited to Portsmouth. Some familiar names on the list include Yale's Greg Mangano, Harvard's Keith Wright, Pittsburgh's Ashton Gibbs — a close friend of Rosens's, and Juan Fernandez and Ramone Moore out of Temple.

When I spoke to Rosen a few weeks ago about his post-Penn aspirations, he said he was looking forward to playing with the heightened, non-Ivy League competition.

"Let’s see what happens when there’s not as much attention on me," he said.

Rosen will play on the "K&D Rounds Landscaping" team. Rosters are available here. Note that Mangano and Wright will be playing together at the tournament, and will face Rosen's team in the first round at 7 p.m. tomorrow.

While an invite to the PIT is an honor for the recently crowned Big 5 player of the year, it is by no means a golden ticket. According to the tournament's website, five of 64 participants last year are currently on NBA rosters. Jeremy Lin, who went to Portsmouth in 2010, was not drafted but found his way to the Golden State Warriors.

I went through Portsmouth's data, which goes back 10 years, to see how many players regularly make it to the big leagues:

As you can see, the past two years have seen a decrease in Portsmouth participants who made it to the NBA. On average over the 10 year period, 10 players have made the jump each year, about 16% overall.

Rosen knows what he has to overcome to reach the promised land.

As he put Portsmouth: "Destroy it — that’s my plan. Play my game, do what I do, and from there see what happens"