We could all use some luck in 2010, and that includes Penn State fans. No matter if you are talking about Penn State football or Penn State basketball, as the old saying goes, "I'd rather be lucky than good". When it comes to PSU hoops, there's been very little in the way or "good" or "luck" this year.
Frankly, after watching yet another close loss today to a good team, when it comes to 2010 men's hoops, I'm glad its over.
The Big Ten announced recently the hiring of a firm to investigate possible candidates for expansion. The scuttlebutt is that the list of candidates contains 15 schools and Notre Dame and Texas are not among them. The best part of the PAC-10 and Big Ten exploring expansion is playing the “what if” game. That’s why the magic number for every conference should be 14. The NCAA could take major steps to growing support nationally by creating five 14-team super conferences for their FBS teams.
So how much do recruiting rankings really matter? How accurate are the 'experts' in guessing how good a high school player might be in college, they are average at best in my opinion. Don’t get too excited when your team posts a high ranking by the recruiting services. There are countless examples of 5-star players becoming busts (Penn State is notorious for recruiting highly rated offensive lineman who never materialize) and walk-ons becoming stars (Deon Butler comes to mind, a walk-on who became Penn State's all time leader receiver in most categories).
There is no doubt Penn State had an amazing recruiting class this year, finishing in the top 10 unanimously by most ‘experts’. But how will this class finish 3-4 years from now?
Well, SI has looked back at the class of 2007 based on the facts, how they performed on the field. Read the rest of this entry »
If you love Penn State sports like we do, you are fortunate in that there are lots of resources on the web to feed your habit. In this information age, you can ingest PSU football and basketball virtually 24/7 with all the sites, blogs, forums, and news outlets. We take it for granted often these days, but its WAY more accessible than even 10 years ago when schmucks like us were following JoPa's crew every move, mostly in newspapers, magazines and call in shows.
However with uber info comes lots of excess, and the sites we like most are ones like ours: the personal, usually smaller websites and blogs that follow Penn State sports and aren't short on opinion and analysis. One that we read that you should check out is the22000.com. Read the rest of this entry »
Well football recruiting is over, the Penn State women's volleyball unbelievable run is over, and frankly the following of Penn State basketball probably turns a lot of fans off right now. You have to dig deep to find some redeeming interest in Penn State sports. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a supporter, I'm looking forward to the PSU hoops game with Michigan State tomorrow, and this losing streak has to come to an end at some point.
But its times like this where attention wanders and you start to notice funny stuff like this. The product in this video is not new, I think its a year old, but I see it as a must for any hard cord Penn State football couch potato TV watching fans. In fact I'm not sure why its not selling more than it is. Anyway, its pretty funny so take a look.
How in the heck did Penn State, the land where quarterbacks come to play their last significant games, land two quarterbacks in the 2010 recruiting class who are both ranked in the top 10? Penn State has not had a QB drafted in the NFL, of any significance, since Kerry Collins in 1995. Since then we have seen the likes of Wally Richardson, Kevin Thompson, Rashard Casey, Mike McQuery, Zach Mills, Darryl Clark (not likely to be drafted until day two) and Michael Robinson (drafted as a RB & Special Teams Player). Read the rest of this entry »
Over the past five years, Penn State Football has recorded a 51-13 record (.79688), giving them the 7th highest winning percentage in college football. Included in those 5 seasons, are two Big Ten Championships and a 4-1 bowl record (1-1 in BCS bowls) with wins over Florida St., Tennessee, Texas A&M and LSU (loss to USC in the 2009 Rose Bowl).
But do Penn State fans expect more? Read the rest of this entry »
I really don’t like calling for someone to be fired but it is time for Penn State to change directions when it comes to their men’s basketball team. Coach DeChellis is the type of guy you want so badly to succeed, he is an alumnus, he inherited a very tough situation in a losing program where the cupboard was very bare and supposedly is a work-a-holic. But the results speak for themselves. Read the rest of this entry »
Here's something to get you over another miserable Penn State hoops loss. Some publications and websites are already putting out their rankings for the 2010 college football season. Never too early.
Here is the one done by Andy Staples at SI.com. Looking at the rankings, it has the usual suspect, and also some usual interesting teams in unusual places.
This is an awkward time of year for college football. Bowl season is over and we’re left to debate the fairness of the BCS. Fans are tuned into 17 & 18 year old kids waffling on their recruiting commitments. My least favorite event is the annual “Coaching Carousel” that is spinning round and round. Next year, Twenty-One FBS schools will have a new head coach. That number will grow as the few remaining vacancies are filled with men currently employed as a head coach and with a signed contract that pays him well. To put into perspective, as a Steelers and Penn State football fan, I’ve only had 4 coaches (Noll, Cowher, Tomlin, & Paterno) over the past 34 years to cheer for. Read the rest of this entry »
Now that the season is over, it is time to start concentrating on the ‘second season’, which is recruiting. While Penn State has consistently done well in recruiting over the past few decades, getting classes that are ranked somewhere between 15-25 overall in the nation, this year seems to be special. Penn State is on pace to have a Top 5 recruiting class this year, one that is on par with teams like Alabama, Florida, Texas and Oklahoma.
This might be the best recruiting class Penn State has ever had and it has all been established with Joe Paterno not taking one in home visit (something he stopped a few years ago). While there is no doubt Joe Paterno plays a huge roll in luring these kids to Penn State, it is his assistants like Larry Johnson Sr., Tom Bradley and Ron Vanderlendin, who pound the pavement and get these kids to sign with Penn State. Read the rest of this entry »
The Big Ten finally stepped up and had a solid bowl season, in fact I think they might of had the best bowl season of all the major conferences. Now, at first glance you might say a 4-3 record is not that impressive. But consider this, the Big Ten beat the ACC champion, the PAC-10 champion, the 3rd best team in the SEC, and the 5th place Big Ten team dominated a similar team from the ACC.
Now, let's consider what the other conferences did: Big East 4-2 (beating UCF, S. Carolina, NIU, UNC), SEC 5-4 (beating A&M, ECU, Cincy, Northwestern, Okie St.), ACC is 3-4 (beating WVU, Tenn, Kentucky) Big 12 is 4-3 (beating Stanford, Minnesota, Michigan St.) Pac 10 is 2-5 (beating BC, Temple)
After being up 15 points at halftime at home tonight to a 7-6 Michigan team, the Nittany Lions end up losing 64-55; being outscored 48-24 in the second half. The Nittany Lions are now 8-7 and now 0-3 in the conference (already losing two Big Ten home games). The days of celebrating an NIT championship seem like forever ago and I think a NCAA berth this year seems virtually impossible. What would the ripple effect be of a season which ends with a 12-20 like record, what would it mean to recruiting, what would it mean to the status of Jr. Talor Battle coming back for his senior season and what would it mean to the long term state of this very fragile program? Read the rest of this entry »
It is amazing that a team could regress as much as Penn State Basketball has from 2008 to 2009. Penn State lost again today at home in the Bryce Jordan Center to Wisconsin, 63-46; now 8-6 on the year. We all know by now that last year they won a record number of games (27) and their first national tournament championship (NIT). But the past is the past, and this team is just downright awful. Besides leading scorer Talor Battle, they have no consistent offensive alternatives and their defense is equally deficient. Read the rest of this entry »
I wish the rest of the Big Ten would step up and represent the conference during bowl season; living here in the south, in the middle SEC and ACC country, I am sick and tired of getting so much grief about the Big Ten's lack of conference success; we have not had a wining bowl record since 2002. But if you look at Penn State's record we are 17 - 7 since 1980 and 7-2 against the mighty SEC. Read the rest of this entry »
