Thursday, November 10, 2011

From the FreeP: Catch me if you can: After a promising first season, speedy point guard D.J. Irving is ready for stardom

By Craig Meyer/DFP Staff

Lounging back in a booth at T. Anthony Restaurant on an overcast, non-descript Veterans’ Day in 2009, then-Boston University men’s basketball head coach Patrick Chambers could not get his mind off a certain thing.

It wasn’t his team’s first game of the season that Friday at Iona College, the game that would not only mark the beginning of Chambers’ tenure at BU, but also the start of his head coaching career. Nor was his brain wrapped around a heralded pair of recruits – Dominic Morris and Travis Robinson of Friends’ Central High School outside Philadelphia – who had just committed to BU about a week before.

Rather, on this day, all Chambers could think about was a speedy high school senior about six hours south in Chester, Pa.

“We’ve got this point guard coming in next year, from Philly, who is lightning,” he said with a pronounced emphasis on the last word. “This kid is going to be a star one day in this league, I can guarantee that.”

Roughly two years later, and with Chambers now the head coach at Penn State University, the faceless, ambiguous “lightning” that Chambers spoke of that day is now well-known across campus and the America East Conference by a different name – D.J. Irving.

Read more at dailyfreepress.com.

No comments: