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With the NCAA's in full swing, it's a good time to take a peek at the future, or the Shadow Team's shadow.   Pennsylvania's PIAA championships were held last weekend, and Penn State's inbound group snared 3 big school (AAA) champs: the ever-studly Alton twins, with Andrew easily taking gold at 145 (his 3rd), and Dylan destroying the 152 weight class (his 2nd), and rising senior Nico Megaludis winning his 2nd gold at 119.   In the AA class, both Penn State recruits were upset. Frank Martellotti dropped a 4-3 decision to take 2nd, and Dirk Cowburn was denied his 3rd title, losing an ugly 1-0 decision to returning champ Eric Hess. The Cowburn/Hess match was highly anticipated, as both were returning champs, but......what a snoozefest. Hess' escape in the 2nd period was it, and both looked uninspired. A good wrestler can make anyone look bad, but this was sheer dullsville. Cowburn is the only small school wrestler offered a scholie (Martellotti is walking on), and I'm hoping Cael can get this guy moving and much more aggressive.   All in all, while a good weekend for the good guys, here's a flashback (after the jump) to the 2009 AAA finals. Recognize any names?

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I’ll preface this by saying that I have no particular allegiance to the Penn State basketball team. I am not an alum, nor are any close friends or family. I’m a huge Penn State Football fan primarily because of the way I completely and unequivocally respect how JoePa runs his organization with "The Great Experiment" and could never imagine cheering for another team over PSU. It also didn’t hurt that growing up in Philadelphia, the ’87 Fiesta Bowl was the first national championship for any "home team" that I can remember, and that it came over a team that my father vehemently hated. But while I am a college hoops fan, due to a variety of reasons my allegiances lay elsewhere. That being said, I have an outsider’s curiosity as to the current mindset of PSU basketball fans. From what I gather from this site, the majority of you feel that men’s hoops will only gain a respectable following (from students, alums, etc) if they become a regular NCAA tournament team, as indicated by this poll http://www.blackshoediaries.com/2010/3/16/1376075/who-cares-penn-state-basketball. My question to all of you then, is what is a consistent NCAA team? 50% of the time? 75% of the time? 90% of the time? No team makes it 100% of the time. Arizona had its consecutive NCAA tournament appearance record broken this year. Additionally, perennial powerhouse teams that many would consider to be consistent national championship contenders (UNC, UCLA) also didn’t make the cut this year. Kentucky missed out last year, etc. I’ve compiled a list of 15 well known schools below, showing how many NCAA tournament appearances they’ve had over the last 25, 10, and 5 years including this year. Some of these schools are powerhouse teams that contend for national championships and Final Fours multiple times a decade (ie Kansas), some are historically strong schools but are are on a down turn currently (ie Indiana), some are (like Penn State) primarily considered football schools (ie Georgia), and others are just what I would consider good but not great programs (ie Memphis). Please note that I’ve only considered NCAA tournament appearances, not how each team fared in the tourney. So Florida’s back to back national championships don’t count any more than Stanford’s 2 appearances over the last 5 years. Also, vacated appearances (ie Memphis, 2008) don’t count. Back to my question: what makes a "consistent NCAA team"? What team will Penn State have to emulate to attract the masses to games?

Poll

Over a 10 year span, how many NCAA Tournament appearances does Penn State have to have to be considered a "consistent" NCAA team?

• 5 (low, but better than now)
• 6 (getting better)
• 7 (even still)
• 8 (high hopes...)
• 9 (seriously?)
• 10 (you're dreaming!)
• 11 (PSU's knobs go up to 11)

  64 votes | Results

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via himg.uscho.com

"Justin" posted some alleged insider info on Big Ten Expansion over on Frank the Tank's blog.  In summary, he claims the Big ten will be expanding to 14 and the three institutions to receive invitations will be Notre Dame, Boston College and Rutgers.  This is a major push east to capture the New Jersey, New York, and Boston markets.  The idea is that adding BC will soften the transition for Notre Dame and establish a Catholic/Private ally within the CIC.  In addition, this sort of expansion will add off-season value to the Big Ten Network by creating a  top-tier hockey conference tied to the Big Ten brand.

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If you are a fan of Penn State or would become one if they weren't one of the most underachieving BCS programs in the country, pray that the NCAA Tournament is expanded to 96 teams.  It sounds like it will probably happen.

It's not just that Penn State's chances will increase because there are 32 extra spots and that the NIT will disappear(Hallelujah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), it's that there will be that much more pressure on the school to now make the field.

Right now making the field of 64 is a tough accomplishment.  There are 300 some teams and 65 spots, some of which are guaranteed to the lesser conferences.  Compare that to college football where half the teams make a bowl game, the mark of a successful season at most schools.

Right now there are a lot of established programs with winning traditions in the Big Ten  and other conferences that Penn State has to eclipse on a given year to get a bid.  While we still get on the school for not trying their best and not getting there, we see and know why they don't.  They don't believe the additional expense provides any greater guarantee that they will become a NCAA Tournament contender.

If the field expands to 96, now the school has no excuse.  If you can't make the field of 96, it truly is embarrassing considering your athletic department regularly finishes in the top 10 in revenue.

Can you imagine the outcry if Penn State was regularly missing NCAA Tournaments with 96 teams?  Penn State can't field a top 100 basketball team?  What is Tim Curley's excuse now?

Expanding the field if anything puts more pressure on the school because of the embarrassment factor.  Even though the program should already be embarrassed for a variety of reasons, there really isn't anything truly embarrassing about about not making the current NCAA Tournament.  That changes with 96 teams.

If I had a say in running a 96 team field.  Byes for the top 16 teams and the bottom 16(small conference guys).  Let the middle 64 where there is parity battle it out in the first round.  You keep tradition of the 64 team tournament which every one loves by letting the little guys play the best teams and you still protect the top seeds in the first round.  Being one of the top 16 teams will keep the regular season important.  You protect the drama of selection Sunday and the controversy for the talking heads.  Who should have been the 1 seeds, who wasn't deserving of a 4 seed and a bye, who got screwed with a 5 and no bye. What would be really interesting, and would be a way to honor the NIT it's absorbing and had a long tradition within college basketball is to have teams 32-64 host their first round games at home.  The teams that would normally have to play in the NIT would have to win on the road in another teams gym in front of sell out crowds.  The logistics and broadcasting would probably prevent this ($$$) but it would make those games much more interesting.  This kind of set up would create great story lines throughout the tournament.  The Cinderella's coming from the first round road teams, the Cinderella's coming from the first round home teams, the little guys still get to play the top seeds, etc.

If they give byes to the top 32 seeds and let 33 through 96 battle it out, they kill the beginning of the tournament.  No one is going to care if a little school beats a middle of the pack Big 12 team.  Watching Kansas play a NIT team like Seton Hall in the first round doesn't provide the same interest.

I really believe I have created a great tournament with 96 teams.

 

Sup party people!  Our little jtots have finally arrived.  Please meet Alexander James (left) and Nathaniel Maxwell (right).  Alex was 5.11 lbs / 19.5 inches and Nate weighed in at 5.1 lbs / 19 inches.  We're all home and doing well.  Wifey has been amazing and our joy and gratitude probably cannot be expressed.  I know this isn't a daddy blog, so I thank you all for your patience with me over these past 9mos as I've been anxiously awaiting their arrival.  I also want you to know that you all are part of my extended family, however anonymously, and I hope you'll welcome these new fans into the larger Penn State Family.  They're already mobile-tested, and the Odyssey is just itchin for a road trip, so I hope you'll get to meet them at a tailgate sometime down the road.

 Curley's statement about another year of Ed made me comment about the fact that I think the problems with Penn State basketball run a lot deeper than the coach. I'm going to try to dissect those problems in this post, and then perhaps posit some ways the University might address them in a subsequent post.

I've been thinking about this for a long time. At the very least, since the spring of my senior year, 2002, when I was lucky enough to participate in a focus group of students that the athletic department assembled to help them better understand how to improve the hoops program. I apologize for failing be part of a focus group, that obviously, FAILED.

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Hey folks,

The BSD Fantasy Baseball draft is in two days, and we just lost a team from the league, leaving a spot open to someone else here.  If you're interested, please sign up ASAP.

The league is now full, thanks to team "Iowa Smells".  We could still add up to four more teams, but I'd need committments from four to open the league to more teams.  If you're interested, please state so in the comments.  When there are four, I'll open the league up to sign ups again.

The league is on Yahoo!.

ID#: 253375

Password: joepa

We have four divisions set up, so there will be more competition throughout the season than for simply the top spot in the league.  Come, play, win!  It'll be fun.

I have a vague idea of what criteria the selection committee uses to determine what teams get into the dance at best.  What I do know is that Notre Dame got a 6 seed, which means they were very, very comfortably in, and Illinois did not get in.  Notre Dame must have a much better resume than Illinois then, right?

Notre Dame was 23-11, with 5 wins against the Colley Matrix top 50, but 6 wins against teams ranked #235 or lower.  3 of their losses were to teams ranked #28 or higher, but another 3 were to teams that finished #80 or lower. 

Illinois was 19-14, with 5 wins against the Colley Matrix top 50, but only 3 were against teams ranked #235 or lower. 8 of their losses were to teams ranked #28 or higher, but another 4 were to teams that finished #80 or lower.

So removing completely understandable losses (#28 or higher) and complete garbage wins (#235 or lower)  changes things a bit.  Notre Dame is now 17-8 with 5 quality wins and 3 bad losses.  Illinois is now 16-6 with 5 quality wins and 4 bad losses.

I'm not here to tell you which resume is better.  I'm not trying to say that ND didn't deserve in or that Illinois did.  I'm sure that if different arbritrary cutoff points were used in the Colley Matrix (or any other rankings) this could tell a different story.  What I am trying to say is that a reasonable person could look at objective, reasonable, unbiased, wins-and-losses data and think Illinois had every bit the season Notre Dame did, if not better. 

One is a 6 seed; one is not in.

Bumped: Thanks to kmblue for setting this up. Sorry I didn't have this up 0.2 miliseconds after the selection show.

Yeah, yeah, the PSU Men's Basket FailBall team was a disappointment this year.  However, it's time for March Madness, brackets, and watching Cinderellas beat the team that we expected would win it all. Or, to find that we picked the wrong Cinderellas and our brackets are screwed after the first round.

I've started a BSD group on ESPN for this year.

Name: bsd2010      Password: zuggets

I promise to do better in this than I did in fantasy football this year. Join and lets get started folks!