The Rock make their first appearance Nov. 4 with a noon tipoff in Alumni Hall on the campus of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Five days later, the Green and White travel to Ann Arbor, Mich., to take on the University of Michigan. Tipoff in Crisler Arena is set for 7 p.m.

“We are excited to have the chance to play Navy and Michigan, and we thank Coach Ed DeChellis (Navy) and Coach John Beilein (Michigan) and their staffs for giving us the opportunity to play their fine programs.”

“This is the fourth time in five years we have been able to put Slippery Rock University in the national media spotlight by playing an exhibition game against a big-time program,” Reynolds said. “It's exciting for the entire university community and all of our alumni, students and fans to see SRU's name with the BCS schools.”

“These exhibition games and our out-of-conference contests provide valuable game experiences that will help us get ready for the always challenging PSAC (Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference) regular-season schedule.”

The official tipoff of the 2012-13 Rock season is a Nov. 13 road date with non-conference, WVIAC  rival Ohio Valley University in Vienna, W. Va.

Six days later, The Rock opens its home schedule with a 7 p.m. contest in Morrow Field House against La Roche College.

The Rock tip off their PSAC schedule Dec. 1 at Bloomsburg, Reynolds' alma mater. That is the first of eight games against PSAC-Eastern Division teams on SRU's schedule between Dec. 1 and Jan. 16 when PSAC-West competition starts in earnest.


All told, The Rock will play 26 regular-season official games with the contests evenly divided among home and away dates. All but four of the games will count in the PSAC-Western Division standings that will ultimately determine which six teams advance to the conference's postseason tournament in early March.

The Rock returns four starters from its 2011-12 team, which compiled a winning record for the fourth consecutive season, a feat accomplished only once before in SRU men's basketball history, and also won a school-record 14 PSAC games.

Heading the list of returning players from last winter's 17-10 team are All-PSAC-West performers Devin Taylor (top photo) and Tabari Perry and fellow starters Aubin Reeves and Luiz Santos.

Taylor led The Rock in scoring (13.5 points per game) and rebounding (9.8 per game) last winter, Reeves added 9.6 points and 3.2 assists per game, Perry (left photo) contributed 9.5 points and 7.0 rebounds per game and Santos averaged 6.5 points and 7.0 rebounds per game.

Also returning is John Bayardelle, who averaged 7.5 points per game while drawing the toughest defensive assignment each game.

Complementing the returning talent will be four transfers, seniors Gerald Brooks (Indiana, Pa.), Jermaine Edwards (Barry, Fla.) and Darious Clark (Illinois State) and junior Sa'Quan Davis (ASA College).

All four student-athletes were proven performers at their previous schools.

Brooks, a three-time All-PSAC-West performer at IUP and the 2007-08 PSAC-West “Rookie of the Year,” averaged a team-high 15.5 points and 6.9 rebounds per game as a junior in 2008-09.

Edwards, a former junior-college standout at Cecil College, averaged 8.5 points and 6.3 rebounds last winter at Barry, a member of the Division II Sunshine State Conference.

Clark averaged 15.1 points and 7.6 assists per game in two junior-college seasons at Cecil College before transferring to Illinois State, where he played in 14 games last winter for the Division I Redbirds, who earned Missouri Valley Conference runner-up honors and earned a berth in the Postseason NIT competition.

Davis averaged 13.7 points and 4.5 assists per game in junior-college competition last winter.

Rounding out The Rock's 2012-13 roster will be redshirt freshmen Kenny Moore and Maxx Rynd, sophomore Daivon Jackson, who is currently a lineman on The Rock football team, and freshmen Jordan Grady and Chris Hays.