--The two teams have not met since 1976 in a rivalry that dates to 1909.
--This is Georgetown's first non-tournament regular season game against a Big Ten opponent since a 1991 game against Ohio State in Las Vegas. It's only the the Hoyas' second game ever on a Big Ten campus, with a previous road game on December 11, 1979 at Indiana . (Georgetown's previous games with Penn State were pre-Big Ten, of course.)
--Georgetown is 2-4 in its first road game of the season since 1998.
--Penn State will look forward to playing at home to open the season. The Nittany Lions were 0-12 on road and neutral courts in 2002-03.
  

Pennsylvania State basketball begins a new chapter as the Ed DeChellis era kicks off Sunday against Georgetown. DeChellis, a 1982 PSU graduate, previously coached at East Tennessee and hopes to reconstruct a program which has been uncharacteristically absent from the national stage--since 1955, Penn State has been ranked in only one season since.

The Lions enter the game with a lot of question marks. The team lost both its exhibitions, to EA Sports and Team Nike. Injuries and inexperience figure to be key issues all year for the Nittany Lions, having lost its two leading scorers from a 21-loss team.

One player to watch will be freshman Marlon Smith. Smith averaged 20 ppg at Archbishop Malloy in New York and led the Stanners to the semifinals of the New York City championships last spring. As Smith adjusts to the college game, Coach DeChellis will look to sophomore DeForest Riley-Smith (40% from three point range) and 6-11 junior Jan Jagla to frustrate the Hoyas' perimeter defense, while opening up things for center Kevin Fellows or freshman center John Kelly. Jagla, at 9.2 ppg, is the leading returning scorer for the Lions.

Penn State has six players 6-9 of taller, Georgetown only one. It's the first of many tests for the Hoyas' down-sized offense, but it could serve to expose the Hoyas' weakness early if Freeman gets into foul trouble. Sophomore Amadou Kilkenny Diaw, freshman Sead Dizdarevic, or freshman Ken Izzo could all see minutes inside if PSU pushes the ball at Freeman.

This is a game between two raw teams in every sense of the word. The number of turnovers could rival the number of field goals. Look for the Hoyas to employ an up-tempo game, discover an outside shooter, and win the game late via the free throw line. Otherwise, Ed DeChellis can make some history of his own.