"I thought our young kids did good," DeChellis said.
"I'm very proud of our young kids, I though they were aggressive and executed."
Of the young Lions, freshman Geary Claxton stood out the most. The 6-foot-5 native of West Haven, Conn., recorded 14 points and was aggressive on the boards at both ends of the court, picking up four rebounds at each end.
Claxton and fellow freshman Brandon Hassell showed signs of athleticism that were greatly lacking from last year's product. Hassell provided some excitement with two dunks, and he led all scorers with 15 points off the bench.
"We're trying to get them to run the floor," DeChellis said. "That's been a theme from day one. We had some athletic plays. Hopefully we'll continue to have some athletic plays. That's part of the game and we're trying to go in that direction."
Athleticism can only take you so far in a game: at some point a team will have to be able to shoot the ball from the perimeter. Penn State showed some signs of being a pretty good shooting team, finishing at 46.6 percent from the field and 46.7 percent from 3-point range.
One player shined from the perimeter -- freshman Danny Morrissey. Morrissey shot 3-of-5 from the field, with all of his made shots coming from behind the arc. Morrissey finished the game with nine points.
Even with the high shooting percentage from the field, the Lions struggled mightily from the free-throw line, hitting just 26-of-41 shots (63 percent) from the stripe.
The other bad news to come out of this game was that sophomore point guard Ben Luber re-aggravated his ankle injury in the first half and he was limited to just eight minutes in the game.
Luber was complaining about his ankle on Friday, but practiced hard on Saturday, DeChellis said. He pulled himself from the game at halftime when the discomfort returned. It was uncertain how long, if at all, the injury would keep him out of action.
