To Rush or Not To Rush

The students were right to do it, and it was important to do it.

the talking heads on ESPN last night said – you know why this is a tournament team? because of that crowd.

while there’s something to be said for “acting like you’ve been here before”… we haven’t.
been here in a really long time -

It was a last second win over a team that ranked higher and it meant so much more than just that one win. It opens up tourney opportunites.

I somewhat agree with the act like you have been there before but sometimes emotion overides that sentiment. And this was one of those times. Its not like the players were any better (that’s not the right term but I think you know what I’m saying). Battle basically ran out of the gym when the shot fell. And there was still time on the clock. The emotion just led to pure jubilation.

As one of the students who stormed out on the court, there was no planning. As soon as Battle’s shot finally went down, it was just a pure desire of the students to be out there celebrating with the team.

For me the best part wasn’t even running out there but watching during the timeouts with .3 left as they kept showing Daryl Clark on the jumbotron basically in a 3 point stance ready to lead the charge.

Easily one of the top sporting experiences I’ve ever been apart of as a player or fan.

It was a last second win, and it put us into a “we control our own destiny” thing for the tournament. We are looking at a team that may finish with the most regular season wins of ANY PSU Bball team – and the most Big Ten wins. That is a big deal.

In Rec Hall, after we LOST to Oklahoma. It was the first nationally televised basketball game from State College (on the USA network). Reminds me of the saying, youth is wasted on the young.

Because we understand. To an outsider who doesn’t bleed blue it may have seemed odd. But we have suffered through years of crap, with a grin. We all knew it was going to be a tough game, but to win it would be the peak of our program in many years. Plus we all assume it was win and NCAA bid, lose and it was NIT. So those who question it just don’t get it.

It’s not going to make sense to people that see schools get NCAA births often (or even occasionally). Hopefully, this season is to the basketball team what ’05 was (roughly) to the football team- a solid beginning of something big.

I was thinking last night about how great it would have been to be in this year’s senior class. Your PSU experience would have included the 2005 and 2008 football seasons in your freshman and senior years with two solid seasons in between, multiple night football games, last year’s basketball upsets, and this year’s basketball season. The students are so much more organized and seem to have so much more fun than even a few years ago.

to act like we’ve been there before? I mean a extremely dramatic win over a ranked team to significantly increase our chances at a rare NCAA birth, set ourselves up for a potential #2 seed (!) in the BT Tournament, and everyone is just suppose to file out of the place like the work day just ended?

I’m confused.

A note: The student section’s name is Nittany Nation. :-)

it is not known like the Cameron Crazies

And no, we are not Duke, or North Carolina, or UCLA. I’ve watched a lot of Penn State basketball and I can count on only one finger the number of games like last night – which is the game last night.

I watch PSU basketball only because I’m an alumnus and I want them to do well. I’ve seen them make comebacks before, but they were merely tent pole games in an otherwise mediocre, if not disastrous, seasons.

Yes, beating Illinois may not be a big deal to Pittsburgh (gah!), but it IS a big deal to us, especially during last night’s circumstances.

Rushing the court shouldn’t be a judgement on Nittany Nation (Hi Mike!) either because surely, we don’t do it for football games. Why? Because we’ve certainly been there before.

Hopefully this is dawn of a new era for our athletic department, and for our “football” school, that one day we WON’T feel the need to rush the court.

Is anyone else confused why Jeff Smardjia was at the game lastnight and why he’s photographed rushing the court?

A last-second win against a ranked team, likely cementing a first NCAA tournament berth in eight years (all you have to do is not fail spectacularly at Iowa and then against whoever you get in the Big Ten tourney). If that’s not reason to rush the court, then there is no such thing.

Apparently the kid in the picture that could also be seen tackling Battle and almost killing him? It’s the guy from Crispin and Cream.

Boy, what a series we played with Illinois. First that epicly bad game and then that thing of pure beauty. I’d love to dive right into but there are just too many stories to rush through (that bald kid who almost killed Battle? Yeah, that was me…and boy do I feel like a dumbass now almost killing our best player, haha).

I agree with most everyone here that the students were justified in rushing the court because of the result and context of the game.

I’d just like to add that, as everyone reading this knows, there’s nowhere in the world that causes cabin fever like State College. You’re in the prime of your life, ready to take risks and tackle the world, to dream and to try to fulfill your dreams, to drink heavily, wake up and do it again, for days, weeks, semesters on end.

And then there’s the long swath of winter that suffocates that town from sometime in the middle of November until late March/April. I’ve always been convinced that cabin fever plays a huge factor in a lot of the student behavior in state college in the spring: the riots after the temple game, the ridiculous protests, st. patrick’s day festivities, etc, all happen to a reasonable degree because everyone’s crazy from sitting in a small apartment drinking quietly for five months, but feels like an enternity. If there’s any chance to act crazy—protest who makes our clothes! protest the protesters! riot because we lost to temple! rush the court!—the nittany lion faithful take it in the spring because they’ll do anything to feel alive after the soul-deadening state college winter.

When was the last time we had a (practically) buzzer beater win? I’m pretty sure it hasn’t happened while I was a student. Those are the moments you see on ESPN highlights. Arkansas-Mississippi State University in Richmond beats a known team on a buzzer beater, they rush because they haven’t done it before, AND they just witnessed a buzzer beater. I think that was a large part of the reason we all rushed, it was the way we won. I was glad to be a part of it.