March 9, 2009
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa., March 9, 2009 - Penn State coach Ed DeChellis was named the Big Ten Coach-of-the-Year by conference media voters and sophomore guard Talor Battle (Albany, N.Y.) earned first-team All-Big Ten honors from both conference coaches and media when the Big Ten post-season awards were announced Monday. Senior forward Jamelle Cornley (Columbus, Ohio) also earned second-team selection from the media and third-team honors from the coaches and senior guard Stanley Pringle(Virginia Beach, Va.) was an honorable-mention pick from both. Andrew Jones (Philadelphia, Pa.) was named Penn State's sportsmanship award winner.
DeChellis becomes just the second Nittany Lion coach ever honored with a Coach-of-the-Year award and the first since his mentor Bruce Parkhill was named the Atlantic-10 Coach of the Year in 1990. In his sixth season leading Penn State, DeChellis guided a Nittany Lion team starting three sophomores and playing seven underclassmen in its top 10 to a school-record tying 21 regular-season wins and Penn State's second-most ever Big Ten wins with 10. The Nittany Lions fourth place Big Ten finish marked their second-best ever and Penn State won its most Big Ten games (10-8) since going 12-6 in 1995-96.
During just the 10th 20-win season in program history, Penn State knocked off four Top 25 ranked teams, including huge wins on the road at No. 9 Michigan State and No. 16 Illinois, and posted its most road wins (5) since the 2000-01 season. The Lions won three of those on the road in the Big Ten, equaling a program record, while also posting a school record with 15 home wins on the year, including victories over 12 of their last 14 Big Ten opponents at home.
"I think it's a great testament to how hard our coaching staff and players have worked and what they have done to make this program competitive with anyone in the Big Ten," DeChellis said. "They posted a lot of program firsts, or firsts since a long-time this season, and I'm very proud of how hard and resiliently our kids have played and how thorough and enthusiastic my coaching staff has been. I'm very proud to be working with all of them and of what we have done. This award is a terrific reflection on them."
Michigan State's Tom Izzo was named Coach of the Year by the Big Ten coaches after leading the Spartans to the Big Ten title. Battle was joined on the coaches and media All-Big Ten first-teams by Michigan State's Kalin Lucas, Ohio State's Evan Turner, Michigan's Manny Harris and Purdue's JuJuan Johnson. Lucas was selected as the Player-of-the-Year and Ohio State's William Buford as Freshman-of-the-Year by both the coaches and media. Michigan State's Travis Walton was the coaches pick as the Defensive Player-of-the-Year.
Battle became just the fifth Nittany Lion to earn first-team All-Big Ten honors and the first since Joe Crispin in 2001. He joins Jarrett Stephens (2000) as just the second Lion to earn the honor from both the media and coaches. John Amaechi (1995) and Matt Gaudio (1996) have also earned first-team honors from Penn State.
Battle led the Big Ten in scoring averaging 17.3 ppg and was second with 4.87 assists. His 535 points on the year rank as the fifth-best season total in Penn State history and his 151 assists rank eighth, just eight from a top five season mark. His 13, 20-point games led the Big Ten, and he ranked in the top 15 of eight conference statistical categories, including third in three-pointers (77) and first in minutes per game (37.3). Battle scored 13 straight points and had a career high 29 in the Nittany Lions upset win over No. 9 Michigan State in East Lansing and was big at the end of games helping five times to bring Penn State from nine points or more down to a victory in the Big Ten.
Cornley ranks ninth in the Big Ten in scoring (13.9) and rebounding (6.2) and is the active career scoring leader and sixth all-time at Penn State with 1,479 points. He ranked eighth in the conference shooting 51.5 percent from the floor and led the Nittany Lions in scoring eight times and rebounding 14 on the year. Cornley scored a career-high 26 points vs. No. 7 Michigan State and had five 20-point games and three double-doubles on the year. He earned Big Ten Player of the Week honors on Jan. 26 after averaging 20.5 points and 8.5 rebounds per game in a pair of wins over Michigan and Iowa.
Pringle joined Battle and Cornley as the only teammates to rank among the top 15 in scoring in the Big Ten. He 11th in scoring (12.9) and led the conference shooting 46.9 percent from three on the year and was fifth with 60 threes. He also ranked eighth in steals (1.4) and posted five 20-point games on the season, including a career high 26 at Wisconsin. Among his 22 double-figure scoring games on the season, he had a game-high 20 in Penn State's victory over No. 23 Illinois and scored 11 straight in a big win over Minnesota.
The sixth-seeded Nittany Lions will take on No. 11 seed Indiana (6-24; 1-17 Big Ten) in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament Thursday in Indianapolis, Ind. That game will tip at 5:00 p.m. (ET) on ESPN2.
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