PENN STATE (0-0) VS. VMI (0-0)
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Nov. 13, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State men's basketball team opens the 2015-16 season at 1 p.m. Saturday against VMI in the Bryce Jordan Center. The game will be streamed through BTN Plus and heard live on the Penn State Sports Network with Steve Jones and Dick Jerardi calling the action.
SEASON OPENERS
Penn State has won its last 10 season openers dating to 2005, including all four under Patrick Chambers. The Lions are 88-30 overall in season openers and 78-10 in home season openers.
Openers under Patrick Chambers
| 11/14/14 | vs. Morgan State | W, 61-48 |
| 11/9/13 | vs. Wagner | W, 74-62 |
| 11/9/12 | vs. St. Francis (Pa.) | W, 65-58 |
| 11/12/11 | vs. Hartford | W, 70-55 |
PROMO PLANS
- Free for Students: All Penn State students will be admitted FREE to non-conference games played at the Bryce Jordan Center by swiping their student ID at Gate A.
- Giveaway: 2015-16 schedule posters
- Pregame: VMI head coach and former PSU standout Dan Earl will be honored for his first game as a collegiate head coach.
- Halftime: Drums of Thunder
- Anthem Singer: The National Anthem will be sung by Kim Garner, the mother of Shep Garner.
SCOUTING VMI
Led by Nittany Lion great and first-year head coach Dan Earl, the Keydets' roster contains nine members of last year's team, including four of the top five leading scorers in QJ Peterson, Julian Eleby, Tim Marshall and Phillip Anglade. VMI finished 2014-15 with an 11-19 overall record and 7-11 mark in the SoCon, ending its season in the conference tournament quarterfinals with an 89-61 loss to Mercer.
The Keydets averaged 11.4 3-pointers per game last season and 35.9 attempts from behind the arc, leading all Division I programs in both categories. Five players had at least 30 treys on the season, led by Marshall with 86 and and an average of 2.9 per game.
SERIES HISTORY
The Lions hold a 3-1 advantage in the series (3-0 at home) with the last meeting coming during the 2005-06 season with a record-setting performance.
Previous Meetings
| 11/30/95 | H | 99 | 73 | W |
| 12/14/97 | A | 68 | 71 | L |
| 11/16/98 | H | 90 | 66 | W |
| 12/30/06 | H | 129 | 111 | W |
LAST TIME VS. VMI
Geary Claxton scored 31 points and Penn State set a school scoring record in a 129-111 victory over VMI 12/30/2006 in the Bryce Jordan Center. The Nittany Lions set a number of records in the victory. Penn State's point total easily eclipsed the previous mark of 110 points, set against Cornell in 1954. Penn State also set records for assists (36) and rebounds (53), and the teams' total points (250) was also a record. Jamelle Cornley finished with 25 points and eight rebounds, and Brandon Hassell added a career-high 20 points for Penn State (9-4), which received double-figure scoring from seven players.
LIONS VS. THE SoCON
Penn State is 8-1 all-time against current teams in the Southern Conference, with the lone loss coming to VMI in 1997. The last matchup against a SoCon team was in 2010 vs. Furman, a 70-49 victory for the Nittany Lions in the BJC.
NITTANY LION LEGENDS: Dan Earl
One of the most talented point-guards in Penn State history, Earl battled through numerous injuries in a career that spanned six seasons. A four-year starter and two-year captain, Earl would miss most of two seasons due to injury following his junior season when he helped lead Penn State to the 1996 NCAA Tournament before returning for his senior campaign in 1998-99.
As a sophomore, he helped lead Penn State to a third place finish in the 1995 NIT and Penn State finished second in 1998 NIT with Earl serving as an injured captain. A second-team All-Big Ten selection in 1996 and third team in 1999, Earl averaged 10.6 ppg and 4.8 apg over his career. The 1999 third-team CoSIDA Academic All-American set a Penn State single-season record of 181 assists as a sophomore (a mark which stood until 2009) and ranks second all-time with 574 career assists.
He ranks 17th all-time with 1,256 career points, seventh with 162 career steals and seventh with 194 3-pointers. Earl is one of three players to lead Penn State in assists in four seasons, posting 100 or more in each campaign, and also led the Lions in steals in three seasons. Earl's average of 5.7 assists per game in 1995 ranks as the fourth-best PSU season mark. Earl returned to Penn State as an assistant coach from 2005-2011.
UP NEXT
Penn State returns to action at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the Jordan Center vs. DePaul in the Gavitt Tipoff Games, pitting eight Big Ten and Big East programs against each other.
| SEASON NOTES |
CHAMBERS TAKES ON YEAR FIVE
The 2015-16 season marks the fifth year at the helm of the Nittany Lions for head coach Patrick Chambers. The Philly native is coming off his best season in University Park after posting a win total (18) that had been topped just twice in the last decade and four times since 2000. Chambers has seen his overall win total climb each of the last three years and has continued to make waves in Big Ten play.
SENIOR LEADERSHIP
A pair of four-year players - Brandon Taylor and Donovon Jack - combined with Jordan Dickerson, who has played a year and a half in Happy Valley, and Devin Foster, who joined the Lions last year, make up the 2015-16 senior class. Taylor and Jack have been a part of 44 wins in their first three years, the most since the 2011-12 class entered its final year with 57 victories.
ROOKIE RECOGNITION
The freshman class of Josh Reaves, Mike Watkins and Deividas Zemgulis make up the most heralded group to sign at Penn State to date. The trio was rated as the No. 28 class in the nation by 247 Sports, marking the first Top 30 group to join the Nittany Lions. Both four-star players, Reaves and Watkins were each ranked among the Top 100 players in the country by ESPN with Reaves holding the No. 81 spot and Watkins coming in at No. 89 at the time of their signing. Zemgulis was a three-star recruit and a Top 12 prospect from Maryland.
LIONS GAIN UCONN TRANSFER
Terrence Samuel joined the Nittany Lions in July after playing two years at the University of Connecticut. He will have two seasons of eligibility remaining after sitting out the 2015-16 campaign to satisfy NCAA transfer rules. A member of the Huskies' 2014 NCAA Championship team, Samuel saw action in 65 career games with eight starts as a sophomore. He averaged 3.6 points and 2.5 rebounds per game in his second season in Storrs with career averages of 3.0 ppg and 1.7 rpg.
BLOCK PARTY
The Nittany Lions have a total of three players in the Penn State Top 10 in the blocks category. Donovon Jack and Jordan Dickerson are tied at No. 8 with 82 career blocks, while Brandon Taylor is 10th with 74. Jack and Dickerson also share the No. 8 position in single-season blocks with 53 after putting up the total in 2013-14 and 2014-15, respectively. It was the first time Penn State had a player produce more than 50 blocks in back-to-back seasons since 1998 and 1999 when Calvin Booth did so.
RETURN TO REC … TIMES TWO
Penn State's non-conference schedule is highlighted by two games to be played in historic Rec Hall. The Nittany Lions will take on Canisius and Louisiana-Monroe Dec. 10 and 12, respectively, as part of the second Return to Rec. Penn State last played in Rec Hall during the 2013-14 season in a Return to Rec event that marked the first men's basketball game played there since the Nittany Lions defeated Wisconsin, 79-50, in the building on Jan. 7, 1996. From 1926-96, the Lions compiled a stellar 514-183 (73.7%) record in Rec Hall, including a 45-game win streak from 1951-55.
PSU TAKES NYC
The Nittany Lion basketball and men's hockey programs will take over Madison Square Garden Jan. 30 in the first Big Ten Super Saturday - Hoops and Hockey doubleheader. The teams will both take on Michigan with tip slated for noon and puck drop scheduled for 7 p.m., both on Big Ten Network. in the first of four annual events at "The World's Most Famous Arena," which also will host the 2018 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament Feb. 28-March 4 of that year. Big Ten men's basketball and hockey programs will play regular-season games at Madison Square Garden in late January or early February in 2016 through 2019.
LAS VEGAS CLASSIC
Penn State will take part in the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic Dec. 22-23 at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. THe Nittany Lions will open action by taking on Colorado at 10:30 p.m. ET Tuesday, Dec. 22. The winner of the Penn State-Colorado game will play the winner of the SMU vs. Kent State matchup at 10:30 p.m. ET Dec. 23 on FoxSports1. The losers in each game will play each other at 8 p.m. ET, also on FoxSports1. Each team will play four games in the Classic - the first two at on-campus sites and the final two rounds at the Orleans Arena. Penn State's two games are vs. Canisus and Louisiana-Monroe in the Return to Rec series.
STAFF CHANGES
Head coach Patrick Chambers announced a series of staff changes in the offseason, beginning with the move by Ross Condon from director of operations to assistant coach in wake of the departure of Brian Daly. David Caporaletti, who previously spent four seasons as the director of on-campus recruiting, filled Condon's former post. Nicholas Colella then moved into the recruiting role and graduate managers Evann Baker and Kevin Hacke were added to the mix.
NCAA ANNIVERSARIES
The 2015-16 marks significant anniversaries for each of the last four NCAA tournament appearances by the Nittany Lions.
| 2011 | NCAA First Round | 5 Years |
| 2001 | Sweet Sixteen | 15 Years |
| 1996 | NCAA First Round | 20 Years |
| 1991 | NCAA Second Round | 25 Years |
TWENTY SEASONS IN THE BJC
The 2015-16 campaign will be the 20th season in the Bryce Jordan Center. Since opening its doors to basketball Jan. 7, 1996, with a 79-50 win over Wisconsin, the BJC has hosted 316 Nittany Lion games with the team holding a winning percentage of 61.1 in those contests. Penn State has won at least 10 home games in four of the last five seasons.
120TH SEASON PENN STATE BASKETBALL
The Nittany Lions embark on the 120th season of basketball at Penn State and their 25th as a member of the Big Ten in 2015-16. The Lions began play in 1897 with a pair of contests vs. Bucknell, who they will face for the fourth-consecutive season and the 102nd time overall. Penn State has made 13 postseason appearances in the last 27 years (4 NCAA, 8 NIT, 1 CBI) and a total of 20 (9 NCAA, 10 NIT, 1 CBI) overall.