Well, folks, the moment you've all been waiting for has finally arrived: The first game of the Pat Chambers era that you know, actually counts, tips off as the second part of a PSU sports double-dip. The Hartford Hawks are today's opponent and my goodness, are they bad: We're talking 335th in Adjusted Offensive Efficiency and 313th in Adj. Defensive Efficiency on KenPom.com bad (there's 345 Division I college hoops teams, FYI). We're talking losing by 20 points to (wait for it...) Sacred Heart bad. Now, we're all aware that this is a rather youthful and inexperienced PSU team that will require its few veterans in Tim Frazier, Billy Oliver, and Cam Woodyard to lead the way, but there is no excuse for this game to even be close, especially given that Hartford's 20-point defeat happened last night. Just a hunch: Tired legs on an already terrible team doesn't exactly help their cause.
The fact that admission to this game is free, plus the aura of having a new coach making his debut, along with the fact that it starts a little over an hour after the football game ends (assuming no overtime) should allow for a reasonable-sized attendance (nearly half-full would be my guess at gunpoint). Tip-off is at 4:30 PM ET and unfortunately, the only TV coverage you'll get of this is on BTN.com, which isn't free. This means your best bet for play-by-play is listening to Steve Jones and Dick Jerardi whisper sweet nothings in your ears over the radio.
As you probably figured, the live thread rules for basketball games do not differ in any sort of way from the football-related ones. I would, however, just like to remind all posters to please refrain from using ethnic slurs.