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"
To handle a playing roster that is at least 20-deep, Penn's gonna need a lot of coaching, right?
Penn Athletics announced today the addition of Rudy Wise as an assistant coach, joining head coach Jerome Allen and assistants Mike Martin and Dan Leibovitz.
"It is a privilege for us to have Rudy Wise on staff," Allen said in a statement. "He has been successful in a number of walks of life, including basketball. I look forward to having him on the bench with me, and I think he will have a positive impact on our program going forward."
Wise has worked a number of small jobs in the Philly basketball scene, including stints at Villanova and Temple (he ran a summer camp and workouts at Temple last summer).
"I am extremely humbled and excited to be a part of this storied program," Wise said in a statement. "I look forward to working with Coach Allen and complementing his vision to push this program to new heights"
According to a tweet from his high school, rising sophomore Brian Fitzpatrick is leaving Penn to attend and play for Bucknell.
Fitzpatrick got into 17 games this season, averaging 9.2 minutes per game (that he played in. Over the 28 game season he actually got in just 5.6 mpg) and was 16-for-39 shooting on the year, averaging 2.4 ppg.
I haven't heard anything as to why he is transferring, so I won't do any speculating — it may not be basketball related at all.
I saw him a few times in practice where he looked pretty good — he seemed to have no trouble making his shots, however, in game situations he never looked quite as sharp.
We'll see next season how he does within the Bison program. As a side note, I now know that the plural of Bison is Bison.
edit: We'll have significantly more on this in Thursday's edition of the Summer Pennsylvanian, so pick it up on campus (to the three of you on campus) or check out thedp.com Thursday morning.
Penn's prolific scorer Ali DeLuca was in Washington, D.C. tonight for the presentation of the Tewaaraton Award. She didn't win; the Award went to Caitlyn McFadden, who propelled Maryland over Penn in the second round of the NCAA tournament on their way to an eventual championship over Northwestern. Just being there was a special moment for Penn and DeLuca — she was the Quakers' first ever Tewaaraton finalist.
On the men's side, Duke's Ned Crotty won the Award. His Blue Devils also took home a national championship.
Just when you thought things were slowing down as 90º heat settles in over the mid-atlantic, things are heating up for Penn Basketball.
These tweets came over the Wire today from the official Penn Basketball account:
PennBasketball
Summer time in Philadelphia and the Quakers players are on campus and working hard for 2010-2011 season
PennBasketball
It's great seeing all of the returning players back on campus ready for a great summer
Check thedp.com/sports tomorrow for new content from the Summer Pennsylvanian, which comes out every Thursday.
I came across this piece from SI.com last Wednesday, in which Andy Glockner takes a look at "Non-BCS conference players to watch following NBA exodus — Guys you may not have heard of, but will"
Who showed up on this list? none other than Penn's Zack Rosen, who was unanimously voted all-Ivy this year:
Zack Rosen, Penn: Without checking, it's a safe guess that Rosen was the nation's only unanimous first-team all-league player from a 6-22 team. That's how valiant the rising junior was last season, despite program mayhem that included a host of injuries and the midseason dismissal of coach Glen Miller. Expect this writer's alma mater, under former star guard Jerome Allen, to be much improved, with several key players returning to health and a freshman class full of shooters to help take the burden off of Rosen.
The assessment seems pretty accurate, but only time will tell just how Allen will make use of said returning injured players and the freshmen.
Admittedly, things have been a bit quiet on The Buzz lately. I know some of you were disappointed by that, but the staff (myself very much included) has been taking a much-needed break after a hectic final exams period and frenzied production of the DP's commencement and new student issues.
With the paper's summer edition, The Summer Pennsylvanian, publishing its first issue tomorrow, The Buzz will resume more regular updates. Meanwhile, Brian Kotloff will be helming the summer publication. Feel free to send any newstips to dpsports@dailypennsylvanian.com.
Greetings! Michael Gold here in College Park, Maryland, where the No. 8-seeded women's lacrosse team plays top-seeded Maryland for a chance to advance to the NCAA Semifinals. The game starts at noon, and I'll be liveblogging for you today. Follow along here, or click here.
The road back to the Final Four just got a whole lot harder for the women's lacrosse team.
The last three years Penn received a top four seed to the NCAA Tournament, guaranteeing it a home game in the first and second rounds. However, Sunday night when the 2010 bracket was announced, not only did the Quakers (14-3) -- ranked No. 4 in the media poll and No. 6 in the coaches poll -- not get a top four seed, they fell all the way to the eight line. They'll play unseeded Boston University in the first round of the NCAAs Saturday. Due to graduation festivities at Franklin Field, the game will be played at Immaculata University in Malvern, Pa., about 40 minutes from Penn's campus.
With the drop in seed, Penn's chances of making its fourth straight Final Four certainly took a hit. Assuming they pass the Terriers (11-8), the Quakers will almost certainly face No. 1 Maryland (18-1) in the second round at College Park, Md. The Terrapins beat the Quakers at Franklin Field earlier this year, 12-6, and only lost to North Carolina (15-2), who earned the Tournament's No. 3 seed. Five-time defending National Champion Northwestern (17-1) got the two seed while Virginia, still grieving the loss of murdered senior Yeardley Love, got the six seed.
Nationally speaking there was a mixed response to Penn's seeding. One Inside Lacrosse post called it "a little bit of a surprise" that Penn fell to the eight seed. However, a separate post on the site "Liked" that Penn got the eight seed:
The committee placed Penn in a solid position, not too high and not unseeded. As it turns out, they have not beaten a team in the tournament, which keeps them low, but they only had, subsequently, three chances with Maryland, Northwestern and North Carolina. It is not their fault that the rest of the Ivy League did not get a bid, and they had wins against bubble squads Dartmouth and Hofstra. Good place to put the Quakers.
The Quakers, on the other hand weren't conflicted. I was in the Football Team office during the announcement with the lacrosse team, and the players seemed stunned when they saw they were an eight seed.
"I was pretty shocked that we got the eight seed," senior captain Ali DeLuca said. "I think we all are."
Though the Quakers do have a history of being underseeded -- "After four years we still never get recognition" DeLuca said -- the drop from No. 4 in the media poll to the No. 8 seed certainly was the biggest drop the team has experienced come selection day.
Penn -- which hasn't played since it won the Ivy League Tournament last Sunday -- got leapfrogged by two teams that had impressive runs in their respective conference tournaments this week. Georgetown (13-5), who was ranked ninth in both polls at the start of the week, jumped to the No. 4 seed after winning its first ever Big East Tournament title over No. 11 Syracuse Saturday. James Madison (16-2), meanwhile, was ranked No. 7 in the polls and won the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament with a 10-6 win over No. 16 Hofstra.
Another factor is that this year was a down year for the Ivy League. Not only did Princeton fail to qualify for the tournament for the first time since 1997, but the Tigers had a a losing season for the first time since coach Chris Sailer's inaugural year in 1987. Dartmouth, ranked No. 10 by the media and No. 12 in the coaches poll, had the best chance of an Ivy for at-large bid, but failed to earn one. With the Big Green out of the tournament, Penn's two wins over the Big Green -- the Quakers' only victories over a top 15 opponent -- were devalued.
In fact the lack of a quality victory was the third and perhaps deciding factor in Penn's fall. Though the Quakers only lost to the top three teams in the tournament, albeit by a combined 35-20, those three teams were the only chances Penn had at earning a truly quality victory. So while Penn only lost those three nonconference games, that just wasn't good enough this year.
As DeLuca summed it up "It was a combination of the Ivy League [being] not as good and us losing to those three teams... We don't have a big win or a bad loss."
The Quakers must move past the seeding slight and focus on the Terriers. Ironically, just like the underseeding, Penn is quite familiar with BU in May. This is the third time in four years the teams have faced off in the NCAAs. The current seniors faced BU in the first round as freshmen, winning 11-5 at Rhodes Field in the first round. (Coincidentally, Maryland awaited them in the second round just like this year.) Then in 2008, the Quakers won 8-5 in the second round at Franklin Field.
"They're always a fun team to play," DeLuca said of the Terriers. "After two years I'm sure they'll be out for revenge."
***
(Here's the complete bracket.)
Welcome to sunny Franklin Field where the No. 5 women's lacrosse team takes on No. 10 Dartmouth in the final of the inaugural Ivy League Women's Lacrosse Tournament. I'm Zach Klitzman and Michael Gold will be joining me shortly to live blog this game. So follow along.
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Or just watch below:
<a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=8b528295a1" mce_href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=8b528295a1" >W. Lax Tournament Final</a>
We've got a multitude of reports coming out right now that Penn basketball prospect Kevin Panzer will not be heading to Penn this fall. Instead, an NBC affiliate out of Northern Nevada has confirmed that Panzer will sign to the University of Nevada (the Wolf Pack) very soon. The report has since been picked up by KOLO-TV, out of Reno.
A classmate of recruit Casey James, who is expected to come to Penn, Panzer initially announced his verbal recruitment to Penn in August. But after the Quakers, under coach Glen Miller, had already lost four straight games, Panzer decommitted. About two weeks later, Miller was dismissed from his contract, and Jerome Allen took his spot.
Though several recruits thought Panzer was going to commit to Penn, he was courted by both Nevada and Iowa in the last month. Panzer took an official visit to Nevada last weekend; it appears that caused him to seal the deal.
It's Zack Klitzman and Michael Gold here, live at Franklin Field tonight for the first-round of the Ivy League Women's Lacrosse Tournament. No. 1-seed Penn will take on No. 4-seed Princeton in the semifinals of the tournament. The winner will advance to play Dartmouth (who defeated Brown, 10-8 earlier today) on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. Follow along as the Quakers, who won the regular season title with an undefeated record, take on their rivals from New Jersey.
Based on a tweet by my colleague and predecessor David Gurian-Peck last Saturday, I decided to do a little analysis of just how much the 54,310 track fans were paying to see the Fastest Man in the World, Usain Bolt, run at the Relays.
David tweeted: "Part of me regrets missing Bolt. But at $40/8.79 = $4.50 per second, that has to be the most expensive sporting event in America."
So I threw together a little spreadsheet calculating the average cost per minute of attending various professional sporting events, as well as more marquee events such as the World Series, Super Bowl, and my favorite, a Penn Basketball game in the Palestra with a $7 Red and Blue Crew ticket.
For the Relays I did three calculations, one (rather ridiculous) implies that the ticket holder only watched Bolt's leg of the race. the next assumes the ticket holder watched only that 4x100 race, and the third assumes a fan stayed from 7a.m. until 6p.m. when the Relays closed. As you can see, the Bolt-only price blows the competition out of the water. Only the Super Bowl eclipsed the 39.9 second 4x100 relay race.
Interestingly, an MLB game and a seat in the Penn student section came out at the bottom of the list (disregarding anyone who actually stayed at the Relays for 11 hours...). However, given the dwindling numbers of student fans actually attending games in the Red and Blue Crew this year, I think a price cut may be in order before we see the Palestra nearly as close to capacity as was Franklin Field Saturday for Usain Bolt.
Disclaimer: This is in no way scientific — I got most of the avg. ticket prices off of the internet, but they seem accurate enough, and I think it paints an interesting picture. It also does not factor in the entire length of the sporting event (except baseball), but instead accounts for only regulation time, as this was easier for me to do without finding some obscure numbers.
Today's the big day: Usain Bolt will take the track at Franklin Field as part of the US v. the World Events. And in case you can't be there, DP sports writers will be liveblogging it--and the rest of today's events. Also on the schedule are the 4xMile champs, hurdles, and the 100m dash.
As part of the Penn Relays, DP sportswriters will be live-blogging many of the events for today. On board for today, in addition to the corporate relays and Paralympic events, are the college 4x200 relays and the shuttle hurdles. Keep posted with a rotating staff of writers and follow along (for those of you wondering, Lauren Plotnick is at 4)
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Penn officially announced yesterday that Dan Leibovitz would, in fact, be joining is pal Jerome Allen as an assistant for Penn basketball. A few quotes from Penn Athletics news release:
Allen:
“I think Dan’s resume speaks for itself in this profession.” “More important to me, though, is the way he treats people in all areas of life. I have been fortunate to know Dan for 23 years—not only do I know him in this profession, but he has always been someone I look up to as a person. To have him on our staff is great, I could not ask for a better person in that spot. Dan will be a great representative of our program and the University.”
Leibovitz:
“I could not be more excited to return to Penn.”
“A couple of days ago I was walking onto The Palestra floor, thinking about being a part of the Big 5 again, about Penn being 10th in all-time wins and winning the Ivy League 25 times. By the time I reached midcourt, I knew that this is where I wanted to be.
“Jerome has been a great friend since high school, and I know he is destined to succeed as the head coach at Penn. The opportunity to help him realize his dreams while helping to restore such a storied tradition was something I just could not pass up. And make no mistake about it; we will work tirelessly to make that happen.
“Penn is a special place for me and my family,” he continued. “It goes far beyond my graduating from here. My grandfather went here; my mother went here; my wife got her Master’s here. This is an institution that has given all of us so much. I am honored for the opportunity to finally give something back.”
In similar news, the Hartford-Penn trade appears to be complete as John Gallagher was announced as the head coach for the Hawks. I'm not sure how long it will be up but you can check out this flashy splash page that Hartford put up yesterday.
Since Penn and Hartford essentially traded coaches, the question that begs to be asked is: Who got the better end; Leibovitz, the head coach who moved to be an assistant at his alma mater, or Gallagher, the assistant who jumps up to head coach, at Hartford (where he was a well-liked assistant)?
I can't say. I think this is a probably a good move for both of them. Leibovitz didn't have a ton going on at Hartford, and Gallagher wanted to move onward and upward. However there is one caveat. Gal, as you may remember, took an assistant job under Steve Donahue at Boston College. While I know he wanted to be a head coach — that's what he told the DP last week — I think there was more possibility for big time success at BC.
Fox Sports' Jeff Goodman is reporting that John Gallagher is taking the head job at Hartford, vacated by Dan Leibovitz, who is expected to come to Penn to fill the spot left by none other than Gallagher himself. This swap leaves Boston College and Steve Donahue without an assistant, where Gallagher had reported he was going.
I ran into sophomore point guard Zack Rosen while hustling to class today, and while our conversation was short and informal, he told me he was excited about Leibovitz coming to Penn, though he didn't know when it would be made official.
He also mentioned that he heard a rumor, and it seems to have been just a rumor, that former Penn coach Glen Miller was a possible candidate for the Hartford job opened by Leibovitz. While it appears that the Hartford job is now taken, it would have been an interesting move.
Though it seems completely unlikely, what if Miller went to be an assistant at Hartford under his former Penn assistant Gallagher. Ironic, huh?
The University of Hartford announced this evening that head coach Dan Leibovitz has resigned his position. Though Leibovitz signed a contract that would have kept him at Hartford until 2013-14, ESPN.com's Andy Katz reports that Leibovitz said he expects to be an assistant at Penn, replacing John Gallagher, who departed for Boston College to work under former Cornell coach Steve Donanhue (look for more on that in tomorrow's DP).
For those of you who have been following this blog, you'll know that Leibovitz told us in March that he was not interested in the Penn head coaching position and endorsed his friend Jerome Allen for the job. But he said nothing about returning to campus as one of Jerome Allen's new assistants.
We'll be updating this post as we get more information.
The DP ran two columns today. One written by Cal Silcox about Steve Donahue's new position at Boston College, and one that I wrote about what I perceived as a missed opportunity to publicize the press conference.
It turns out those topics were far more related than either of us realized.
It looks like Donahue will be getting quite the warm welcome at Boston College. This splash page (I'll add a screenshot after the jump for those of you who will see this after the press conference) is a giant announcement of the kind of event that I was talking about.It even features the words "a new era in BC basketball." And if the prizes (season tickets! flight vouchers!) weren't enough to motivate students, the fact there's an actual event being publicized here can't be underestimated.
This is Zach Klitzman coming from Franklin Field on a beautiful Friday evening. Follow along as No. 4 Penn (8-1) takes on No. 2 Maryland (11-0) in women's lacrosse.
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