So Penn State kept it in the family again.

By hiring former assistant Ed DeChellis as the new men's basketball coach, Athletic Director Tim Curley continued a long tradition of relying on familiar faces to fill positions within the multi-million dollar bureaucracy known as Penn State sports.

The method has worked before, but this time is different. Coming off consecutive 7-21 seasons, the Penn State basketball team seemed the perfect patient for a transfusion of new blood.

Many observers -- both inside and outside the program -- believed that it would take a big-name coach to not only return the Lions to respectability, but maybe even the unexplored frontier of prominence.

Only Curley knows whether any of those coaches ever really considered the job. Former Chicago Bulls coach Tim Floyd pulled out of the running, and it doesn't appear that University of Pennsylvania's Fran Dunphy or St. Joseph University's Phil Martelli were ever serious candidates.

So DeChellis it is. He has already received singing endorsements from former Nittany Lions Matt Gaudio, Dan Earl and Pete Lisicky, and current players who were considering leaving the program -- Sharif Chambliss, Jan Jagla and Aaron Johnson -- have yet to give a sign they won't be on the court next season.

So why didn't Penn State try harder to land a big fish? State College has never been thought of as a basketball town, but there were plenty of lures at Curley's disposal -- a position in the Big Ten, top-notch facilities, a history of academic success, and close proximity to lush recruiting grounds such as Philadelphia and New York. And Penn State's coaches have always been well taken care of financially.

DeChellis was hired on Thursday, just 18 days after Jerry Dunn resigned. The length of the search is almost as telling as its result -- Penn State knew it was going to stick with tradition. It worked when a brash and heady young assistant named Joe Paterno was chosen to replace Rip Engle 38 years ago.

Not that the expectations for DeChellis are extremely high, or anything.

Welcome back to Happy Valley, Coach.