Deja Vu all over again?

by NittanyBadger on Mar 15, 2009 11:06 AM EDT

Nittany Lion fans are giddy in excitement over their team's post season chances...a shot at the National Championship.

While an easy non-conference schedule drew the ire of the talking heads, the Nittany Lions did what they needed to do through it, and were well positioned for conference play.

The Big 10 was "down" this year and didn't necessarily help the Nitt's reputation. Their conference slate was highlighted by a huge road win at the conference's traditional power. A place Penn State hadn't won in anyone's recent memory, if ever.

It had all the makings of a wonderful and historic season and had the kiddies at BSD sucking down kool-aid. Then along came a trip to Iowa. An inability to finish in the closing moments of the game sent the Lions home with a season killing defeat.

But a successful campaign was not completely hopeless...postseason triumph was still a possibilty. Until the Trojans of USC rose to their feet. They won...and we lost.

Thanks Iowa. Thanks USC. Its been fun.

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Big Ten

The Big Ten wasn’t “down” in any remote way this year in hoops. There are folks that are saying they don’t deserve 8 bids ~~- that would be 72% of the conference -~~ but that’s far different from arguing its a bad conference. The SEC is “down”, if you want to make that point.

if anything, it’s only the overall strength of the conference form top to bottom that has kept us in the bubble. If we were in a weaker conference (one where 9/11 of the teams are not within the top 100 RPI), we wouldn’t even have a shot at the NCAAs.

by Laaaaazzz on Mar 15, 2009 11:17 AM EDT reply actions

Don't Thank Iowa and USC

Thank your athletic director. Replace a win over Lafayette with a loss to Pitt, and we’re not even having this discussion right now. My God, forget a respectable WIN out of conference, we don’t even have a respectable LOSS! If we miss this thing, it’ll be a disaster of our own making, and while this isn’t a popular opinion, I think Curely should be fired for it.

You can talk about the success in other sports all you want, but even I could make us successful with the money that man has to work with. His job is to put our teams in the best position to succeed. He didn’t do that in football OR basketball this season, the two most visible sports. I’m not usually one for running people out, but a 22 win basketball team having their best season in a long, long time should not miss the NCAA Tournament. Period.

God Created the World Out Of Nothing, Paterno Built A National Superpower On Cow Fields...

by Adam Bittner on Mar 15, 2009 12:04 PM EDT reply actions

great post

Not sure about firing Curley over it… but you do have a point

by Bstoner52 on Mar 15, 2009 1:47 PM EDT up reply actions

I don't agree with your statement

That the Big Ten was down this year. As a conference we can boast wins over Louisville, Texas, Duke, and UCLA to name just a few. Our conference RPI is #2. It’s not fair to say the conference was down this year because it certainly was not. I can’t think of one bad loss the conference suffered.

Where Penn State went wrong was in their scheduling. We can’t schedule teams with a 290 RPI. We’re good enough to beat teams in the 100-150 range. And even if we lose, it’s still better than beating New Jersey Tech.

Mike
Black Shoe Diaries

by BSD on Mar 15, 2009 12:15 PM EDT reply actions

It wasn't a serious piece

It was an attempt to extract humor from the number of parallels between the football and basketball seasons, highlighted by the fairly random connections to Iowa and USC.

I placed “down” in quotes because while I don’t necessarily agree with the statement for basketball (its inarguable that as a football conference the Big Ten was down), its been stated by numerous talking heads, whether you agree or not. The selection of 8 or even 7 Big 10 schools will also be controversial given that its viewed nationally as being a lesser ran to the ACC and Big East.

Non-conference scheduling and Tim Curley should remain the centerpiece of debate. But I left those rants for more serious pieces. Tim Curley should be fired (and should have been years ago). Anytime a coach is allowed to schedule an embarrasingly weak non-conference schedule so as to “save his job”, and the AD and HC are known family friends, university administrators ought to do their job and terminate the AD.
We’ll see if anyone in Sleepy Valley wakes up when Penn State ends being team #66…or if they’ll just be happy to continue along with a man who honed is AD skills selling programs at Beaver Stadium.

by NittanyBadger on Mar 15, 2009 1:07 PM EDT reply actions