ZachTheZip

Some PSU arrogance, courtesy of ESPN's game conversation. Have fun.

Nobody cares about Rutgers or Maryland in those markets, though. St John's and Georgetown, however...

So who's going to win games for us while we wait for the younger players to develop? I think you're looking at this as taking away from the number of freshmen we could recruit, and how that will affect us down the line. However, the idea when you're at the bottom and moving up is that every recruiting class should have more talent than the one before it. If half our recruits are JUCOs this year, then the half that are freshmen will be surpassed by future recruits if the JUCOs do their job and get us winning some games. It's not like we are risking being even worse in the future if we try to win in the present. We literally have nothing to lose.

Bringing in lots of JUCO talent is an easier prospect in football than in basketball. In basketball, you need to have at least five players that work as a cohesive unit in most or all aspects of the game. That's very difficult to acheive if you're just plugging in players. But in football, the units on the field are smaller, ranging from two to five (for the offensive line) and each unit has a limited set of tasks to perform. JUCO players can come right in and succeed in football without losing too much due to not immediately meshing with their teammates.

In D-III he's able to earn an academic scholarship. There's no limit on how much D-III schools can hand out. I think he'll be just fine.

Looks like we're playing the Nittany Lions on Sunday. It's going to be ugly, but we can beat them. If we build a lead, they won't be able to come back. Edit: Meant to type Penn State in the title.

If nothing else, I've learned that Dan Dakich is a great color commentator. He's really the only reason this game is semi-watchable.

Looks like Providence plays a 2-3 zone D and scores in transition. Also looks like that's who we'll be playing.

Yeah.

Going to OT.

Penn State plays an old-school Charlie Coles style of basketball. Providence only six players.

Watching this Penn State-Providence game, and it's awful. Just awful.

Having finally seen them in person, they look pretty good. They could stand to develop some depth, though. They're a whole other team when Tecca is in the game. She's unreal.

"Big wins" are accounted for in the RPI formula, just like wins over lesser teams and losses and ties. Why do you think they have a selection committee instead of just using the RPI to seed the tournament? Because it gives people like John Bluem and Ray Reid an opportunity to apply their own biases to the tournament.

They're both predicted to finish very poorly in their conferences. I think Providence would be better for our RPI at the end of the year.

it would be nice if Blake Justice could start actually hitting some shots. He needs to hit something to get his confidence.

Game's on ESPNU now.

You can tell that Melo has talent, but he really needs to slow it down. He plays out of control.

It's something we've seen in basketball selection for a while. Having a several big wins is more important than your record or overall schedule quality.

We've offered a whole bunch of JUCO players, one of whom is Nick Montana. You might have heard of his father, Joe.

Even better.

Or going to the Women's Basketball game tomorrow. First 100 students get a ticket.

Sounds like Niagara's strategy is to sit back on D, and occasionally send up a forward to try and score. And it paid off. You can guarantee that that's what we'll see if they win. A horrible, horrible one-sided soccer game.

If you look at where the top 16 teams were seeded and compare that to their RPI, you end up with this: #1 Notre Dame (Big East) Diff 0 #2 Maryland (ACC) Diff +1 #3 Georgetown (Big East) Diff +1 #4 UConn (Big East) Diff +3 #5 Akron (MAC) Diff -3 #6 UCLA (PAC-12) Diff -1 #7 Marquette (Big East) +1 #8 Saint Louis (Atlantic 10) Diff -2 #9 North Carolina (ACC) Diff 0 #10 Louisville (Big East) Diff +3 #11 Tulsa (Conference USA) Diff +1 #12 Creighton (Missouri Valley) Diff -1 #13 New Mexico (Mtn. Pacific) Diff -3 #14 VCU (Atlantic 10) Diff 0 #15 Wake Forest (ACC) Diff +3 #16 Indiana (Big Ten) Diff 0 To break it down, you get the Big East collectively seeded +8 compared to the RPI. The ACC is +4. Everybody else combined is -9, with only Tulsa getting a 1-spot boost.

Normally, that would have been a lob to Harney near the rim, because you knew he would be able to slam it in.