The primary also-ran tournament came to an end last night as the Nittany Lions of Penn State won the NIT, beating Baylor, 69-63. Along the way, Penn State senior Danny Morrissey absolutely crushed his own face while diving for a loose ball. Over at PennLive.com, they have an article praising the work Jamelle Cornley, who ended his Penn State basketball career with the NIT Championship. Perhaps Morrissey should receive such a complimentary article as well. Any player who face plants while going after a loose ball deserves to acknowledged and loved by the local media — especially when the kid’s a senior.
Let’s not forget he was sacrificing his face for an NIT victory as well. It wasn’t even the real Big Dance. That, alone, deserves recognition.
Normally, those scoring charts have a steeper increase, but thanks to what might be one of the uglier basketball games in the shot clock era for a major conference, featuring Penn State and Illinois, the beauty of the game was absolutely extinguished.
At least in Champaign, Illinois, it was.
The Big Ten “battle” between these two schools treated the viewers to, simply stating, putrid basketball; something the 38-33 score indicates quite vividly. 38-33 in favor of Penn State. Think about that for a second. In 40 minutes of basketball, the fastest rate either team could score at was less than one point a minute. Furthermore, the average combined score in college basketball this season is right around 137 points a game.
During USC’s first half thrashing/second half clock-running beatdown of Penn State at yesterday’s Rose Bowl, Taylor Mays, a member of USC’s secondary, wanted to show the world just how hard he could lay the wood to opposing players. And if a teammate gets blasted in the process? Sorry. He’s just a casualty of college football.
Would you have it any other way? Are there better methods to decide a national championship than the BCS? Ask Division II football. But until a cataclysmic shift in the cosmos occurs, the BCS is what we have so we might as well go with it — unless, that is, the football teams in question decide to boycott these upcoming games, making a protest that would be impossible to ignore.
Oh well. Perfect world and all that. Anyway, here’s our little preview of the upcoming BCS games and may God have mercy on our “we want a playoff” souls.
The BCS standings have been out for a couple of weeks now and after all this weekend’s fun — What’s worse? Watching Penn State beat your Buckeyes or passing a kidney stone? This guy knows. — the picture is taking shape. Of course, said picture could be rendered useless with all the football left to play, but as long as we don’t have a playoff of any kind, BCS chatter will have to do.
So who’s it going to be in the BCS Championship Game? Texas and Alabama? Penn State and Texas? Penn State and USC? Georgia and Oklahoma? How about Florida and Texas Tech? Bama and Penn State? Any of these games could happen, depending on the SEC and Big 12 championship games. Which game would be the most appealing? Texas/USC? What about Florida/Penn State?
Of this group, Texas Tech has the toughest schedule (Texas, Oklahoma State and OU in the next three games). Then there are the conference championship games (Georgia/Bama rematch, anyone?) and who knows how those will impact the BCS; something that should clear up even more after this weekend. Until then, we have a little impromptu poll featuring some of the potential championship games.
You can also add your own if these aren’t sufficient.
Lots of great match ups this weekend, including the headliner of Penn State at Ohio State. It seems everyone wants Penn State to beat the Buckeyes in order to keep them from boring up the BCS Championship game — except for OSU fans, of course. Looking at this game from strictly a historical perspective, even though Penn State has been playing lights-out football this season, they don’t do well in Columbus.
In fact, they haven’t won there since 1978 and Joe Pa has an overall losing record against Ohio State (5-7-0). Should we expect more of the same tomorrow night? Well, if karma has anything to do with it, Penn State will probably get smashed by the Buckeyes and if they do, I’m going to blame this douche bag guy.
Lots of good games this weekend and the Red River Shootout kicks things off. Stoops versus Brown. McCoy versus Bradford. The Longhorn defense versus the Oklahoma offense. Hot co-eds from Oklahoma versus hot co-eds from Austin, Texas. Could you ask for anything more from a football game? There will be so much talent on the field in Dallas tomorrow, people might confuse it for an SEC game.
Another wild weekend has come and gone and we saw a group of pachyderms crush some dawgs, Oklahoma rise to the top, Houston hanging his Nutts on the Florida Gators, Rich Rodriguez perhaps save Michigan’s season and too much more to even mention.
The highlight of the weekend was Bama/Georgia and boy, it didn’t disappoint — provided you root for Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide. Meaningless second half point notwithstanding, Bama’s victory over Georgia was so definitive, they look like the class of a stacked SEC conference. 31-0? At the half? What happened, Coach Richt? Were you more worried about the blackout than you were getting your players ready?
