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No. 20 West Chester University Basketball Off To 9-0 Start

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The West Chester University men's basketball team is off and running this season.

The Golden Rams are off to a 9-0 and this success has earned them a national ranking. West Chester is currently 20th in the latest D2SIDA poll.

Head coach Damien Blair says his team has made a lot of progress from a season ago.

"Last year was not one of our better years [finished 14-15]," Blair tells KYW Newsradio. "We thought we lacked a lot of intensity, we thought we needed to be a lot tougher and we had a lot of injuries and lost games because of those injuries. So coming into this year, we were just trying to get better every [day], try to be a tougher team on the floor. Day by day, we started to see that toughness and that energy that we knew we needed in order to be successful."

 

West Chester's start includes a 5-0 record in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference action. Blair talks about some of the key players making this success possible.

"We have three guys that have a lot of experience - [junior forward] Jackson Hyland, [guard] Tyrell Long, who's a senior, and [junior guard] Matt Penecale. Those three guys have been in a lot of tough PSAC games throughout the years. They've all played in a conference championship. Then we have a transfer [guard] by the name of Frank Rokins, who has been the glue that has held us together. He can do a little bit of everything."

Long leads the Golden Rams in scoring at 20.6 points per game. Hyland is second, averaging 17.9 points a night. Penecale pours in 10.9 points a night and tops the team in assists (35). Rokins is the top rebounder on the team (8.8 a game) and he also averages 10.9 points.

Despite all the success West Chester has enjoyed this season, Blair says they can still get better.

"I don't think we're playing at our best," he says. "On the offensive end, we've been getting a lot of easy shots, our execution is not where it needs to be. On the defensive end, there's a lot of areas where we can get better. So we're taking it one day at a time, just trying to improve our offensive execution and make sure we're in the right spots defensively."

West Chester returns to action on December 30th with a home game against Kutztown.

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