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Freshman point guard could be right mix with junior star
Jeff Rice
- jrice@centredaily.comUNIVERSITY PARK — If they cloned Penn State point guard Talor Battle, the result would be a slender, fast, fearless player with a confidence some might consider cocky.
CDT/Nabil K. Mark
Taylor Battle, left, Steve Kirkpatrick, middle, and Andrew Ott, right, joke around during Penn State Men's Basketball Media Day October 19, 2009. CDT/Nabil K. Mark
Nittany Lion freshman Tim Frazier meets every description.
“I love playing with Talor,” Frazier said. “It’s like having another me.”
Battle, who led Penn State to the NIT title and a school-record 27 wins last season, won’t have Jamelle Cornley, Stanley Pringle or Danny Morrissey alongside him as he drives the Nittany Lions toward an elusive NCAA Tournament berth this season. He will have at his disposal a well-rounded returning cast, however, as well as Frazier, a 6-foot-1 jumping jack who was the top-ranked recruit in the state of Texas last year.
“Tim is exciting,” Battle said Monday at the team’s media day. “Super-athletic and really quick. In some ways it’ll be similar to playing with Stan. He doesn’t shoot as well as Stanley right now but as far as getting out in transition and baskets and someone running with me, he’ll be right there.”
Battle and Frazier should be the most important pieces of the intriguing puzzle Ed DeChellis has assembled at the outset of his seventh season. Juniors Andrew Jones, David Jackson and Jeff Brooks will be able to score in and around the paint. Sophomore guards Chris Babb and Cammeron Woodyard and freshman wing Bill Edwards will be able to fire from the perimeter. But all of those players will need the two point guards to get them the ball in the right spots at the right times.
And Battle, who led the Big Ten in regular-season scoring last season (17.3 points per game), will often need another dynamic distributor to help create looks for himself or simply to give him a break from bringing the ball upcourt, roles Pringle filled superbly last season.
“Like Stanley and Talor last year, we’re able to play two point guards together at times,” DeChellis said. “That speed in the backcourt is something you really can’t simulate. Once Tim has the ball in his hands and Talor has the ball in his hands, and they’re pushing the ball, we’re pretty fast. It’s a whole different dimension. But there’s also times where we’ll have to play a different kind of lineup as well.”
A three-guard lineup of Battle, Frazier and Babb, for example, would lead to some great offensive numbers but, considering both point guards are undersized (Battle is 5-11, Frazier weighs 160 pounds), would also leave the Nittany Lions at a defensive disadvantage against bigger teams.
The other, possibly more important issue, is that putting both point guards on the floor at the same time means little rest for Battle, who led the nation with 1,422 minutes played in 38 games last season and said Monday he hopes to take more breaks this year.
“Even if it’s one minute or two minutes,” Battle said, “I think it’ll pay off and make me more efficient later in the season.”
The point guard later admitted, though, that he doesn’t always buy into the energy conservation policy in the heat of the game.
“He’ll come in here and say, ‘Yeah, Coach, I played 4 million minutes last year,’” DeChellis said. “But when he comes out of the game, it’s like, ‘Coach, I’m ready to go back in.’”
DeChellis said the Nittany Lions will also monitor Battle’s practice minutes and try to give him breaks there when possible. Getting his teammates involved when opposing defenses gang up on Battle — which they will until the Nittany Lions prove they can score without him — would also alleviate some of the wear-and- tear.
“My discussions with him have been, ‘You’ve got to play the way you play,’” DeChellis said. “It’s human nature — you just can’t play well 30 nights a year. Some nights you’re just not going to make a shot that you normally make. I think Talor has great trust in the other players on the team, and we’ve got good young players. And those guys have to elevate their games.”
Frazier, Edwards and fellow freshmen Sasa Borovnjak and Jermaine Marshall could all be expected to contribute this season.
“They’re a high-IQ basketball group,” DeChellis said. “They’ve done a nice job of understanding, a nice job of blending in with everybody else.”
Once the season starts (Penn State hosts Penn on Nov. 13), the blending will be initiated by the veteran point guard and the rookie point guard, whose abilities to create scoring for their teammates will likely determine how far the Nittany Lions are able to go.
“That’s just what a point guard does,” Frazier said. “We have to be leaders on the court, have to be able to get other people involved. It’s something that’s kind of in our blood to be able to do that.”
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