"You can have a great career here and make it to the NBA," Curley said. "We think this is a sleeping giant. We just need people to come here, believe in it and stay."
When the man to believe in has already been through this process, the risk is a little lower and the confidence is higher. And a lot of people, including his players, said DeChellis is the man to dig this program out of the dirt.
"If I was a betting man, I'd bet everything on him," Parkhill said of DeChellis. "There is no doubt he will get Penn State where people want it to be. No one they could hire has the passion for the job as Eddie has."
When DeChellis arrived at East Tennessee State in 1996, the team greeting him had one scholarship player and finished in last place in the Southern Conference the previous season.
By the end of DeChellis' seven-year reign at East Tennessee State, he led the Bucs to two Northern Division titles, a Southern Conference crown and the team's first NCAA tournament appearance since 1992. He garnered Coach of the Year accolades and is the third winning coach in East Tennessee State history.
"The process is long, but he'll get the right kids in there," Wagers said. "I have the confidence. I saw him do it here for a program that was down."
DeChellis was in the mix for the Penn State coaching vacancy with several highly publicized names. He was the little guy from a smaller school fighting his way to the big leagues.
But he's been through the ropes at Penn State as an undergrad, when he earned a degree in secondary education in 1982, and as an assistant coach.
"We don't hire in house every time, any time you can find someone within the family, it's an advantage because they understand Penn State and how it operates," Curley said.
"What sold me on Coach DeChellis is when he said, 'I'm gonna raise the bar and I want to compete for a Big Ten, NCAA and national championship, without blinking," Allen said. "He was as serious as a heart attack."
Looking at the numbers, though, it appears that DeChellis and the Lions didn't progress this year, having won two fewer games than last season. But playing with an eight-man roster for the majority of the season wasn't exactly what DeChellis had in mind either. Freshman John Kelly transferred, senior Jamaal Tate became inactive, Luber sat out for a month due to personal matters and Smith missed the last two months of the season due to a transient blood clot in his brain.
"We thought we'd at least have a .500 record and make the NIT," Luber said. "This year was a little more disappointing for myself because it feels like we repeated last year (9-19)."
But DeChellis was in the midst of mopping up the leftovers and laying the foundation. He now has players who want to win for him, specifically Claxton, who, after a dramatic loss at Ohio State, said what disappointed him most was the fact that he "couldn't get a win for coach when I know he wanted it so bad."
It might appear that the freshmen, especially, are naïve when they will look you straight in the face and explain that they will turn around the program. That's why they came here, to be the ones who revived Penn State hoops. And, no, they aren't getting used to losing.
"Sitting around and watching the NCAA tournament, it's like, 'Man, this sucks,' " Morrissey said. "Whether it was the NIT or the NCAA, we could be playing in something. It's just frustrating to think about it."
Taking the long route
DeChellis won't put a timeline on the future and when he accepted the job, he said he would focus on improving each year. He won't take any shortcuts because he said when taking shortcuts might a coach get lost.
"I've never been one to get somewhere else," DeChellis said. "I've always felt like wherever I was, I wanted to do the best job I could."
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