And The Hits Keep On Coming: Chris Babb Bids 'Adieu' To Penn State

A couple of days ago, a co-worker told me that he heard from a friend (who allegedly is close to the basketball team) that Chris Babb along with a couple other players, would be transferring from the basketball team*. Unfortunately, I couldn't access the Internet at work but later that night, when I checked the PSU message boards immediately after getting home, I saw no threads talking about transfers. Naturally, I started to think that perhaps my co-worker's 'friend' was absolutely full of it.

With all apologies to my co-worker, I was dead wrong. According to PennLive, Babb is in fact, transferring elsewhere.

Mike Babb said his son met with PSU coach Ed DeChellis on both Thursday and today (Friday) to talk about the situation. Mr. Babb wished not to speak for his son about his reasons for the transfer. But it's easy to speculate the Nittany Lions' 11-20 season that included a 3-16 record against Big Ten competition certainly didn't help. Texts and calls to Chris Babb's phone went unanswered. His father said he didn't want to talk about his transfer yet.

"Overall, Penn State's a great place," Mike Babb said. "We don't have anything bad to say about it. But it is what it is. If Chris is going to do this, he has to do it at this point. He'll have two years left.

"It's nothing personal. But you don't want to wait until it's too late."

Needless to say, Babb's transfer was one that certainly wasn't on any fan's radar. He was second on the team in average minutes per game (29.3), and his 9.3 points per game at 37% from 3-point range (69 for 185) are nothing to scoff at. Not to mention, Babb also reached double figures in scoring in 10 of the last 18 games of the season, he certainly seemed to be making some strides in the latter half of the season after struggling to adapt to his starting role early on.

I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time speculating on the reasons behind Babb's transfer. If I were to venture a guess though, I'd say a combination of being homesick plus being stuck in a power conference program that isn't showing any clear signs of being an NCAA tourney team were the likely reasons. Also, he may have come to the realization that perhaps Taran Buie was going to take his starting role at the 2-guard position, particularly since Buie is supposedly more of a slasher type as opposed to the spot-up shooter that Babb is. It's no secret how critical it was to have a slashing 2-guard like Pringle in the backcourt last year, as it forced teams to worry about someone other than Talor Battle trying to drive on them from the perimeter. Babb was not the type of person capable of filling Pringle's role, and Buie is more comparable in that sense.

Of course, this now puts Keanu Reeves-like pressure on Buie to step into Babb's spot and immediately contribute. This is where Babb's loss hurts the most for next season...There WILL be a next season, right?


* I was given the names of the 'other players' but out of respect for the players and their families, I will not name them unless/until their transfers are officially reported by some credible media outlet.


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