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As I am sure you already know, the Lions Den is crying foul over PSU theoretical slight by the Bracket Committees. There's a real easy way to avoid any doubt: don't take games off and don't lose to Rhode Island. Basketball is different than football in obvious ways, but one of the biggest ones is that you play a much more demanding schedule in terms of play dates. It almost seems like bball coaches have a bigger task of motivation than their fball cohorts would have. What this means is that the players themselves have got to be very responsible for their own motivation. Basketball is a sport where you do not win every game. Maybe if they played half as many games, they would. But the sport itself is prone to upsets, and players need to be aware of their own accountibility to stay focused each and every game. I do not believe that Ed Dechellis is suited for keeping kids motivated throughout an entire season. And if the coach doesn't exude that motivation, the players don't either. It's a shame they didn't win a few of those games in which they suffered garbage losses and letdowns. But there's no one to blame but themselves. They didn't get shafted by anybody. Now, the problem is graduation. They lose a lot of talent from this team. If they were going to the NCAA tourney, it probably needed to happen this season. The Big Ten was down, and PSU was a little better than normal. If they can land that Buie kid, and with that big Ukranian or whatever, they might be able to win 15 games. I'm not sure how many more years I give Dechellis, maybe 1.

When you play a JV non-conference schedule, your reward is the NIT.

Penn State deserved what it got. They were one of the 34 best at-large candidates. I think they were better than Arizona, Maryland, or Wisconsin, but they did not do what everyone knows you must do to make the tournament. Schedule strong.

They lost to Wisconsin twice. That right there shows they're not better than Wiscy is. I would like go see PSU try and stop Vasquez of Maryland, too.

After watching Maryland against Memphis, I don't see PSU having trouble with them. As is often the case, the ACC was vastly overrated. The Big East was dominant. The truth is that if you took any of the teams seeded 8 or lower in the tournament and put them in the Big East, they would not have made it. Maryland was a pretender - no different from PSU.

...Was Eddie DeChellis hit in the head by a basketball lately? Just read an article in BlueWhiteIllustrated from Thursday and I'm convinced he was. Everyone knows that PSU was snubbed by the NCAA Tournament this year because of PSU's non-conference schedule. Had it been more challenging, they would probably have made the field of 65. Well, when asked about how PSU's schedule is coming along for next season, Eddie was far from optimistic. Here are some of his quotes on the subject:
..."It's been a frustrating experience again. (and get this) I think the better you get, the less opportunities you sometimes have". So now he's actually saying that because PSU has become good, he's having trouble scheduling some of the better teams in America. Is he kidding? Maybe now, Hartford and Sacred Heart may think twice before coming to the BJC.
..." People don't want to come here and play. We're pretty good at home and it hasn't been easy (scheduling teams)". Really???? Funny, playing 95% of your non-conference schedule at home never was a problem in the past. Maybe teams like Villanova, Syracuse, Maryland wouldn't mind coming to the BJC. Why don't you ask them.
..."There's opportunities to go on the road and play some people but the opportunities to get people to come here has been a real challenge". The answer??? THEN PLAY SOME TEAMS ON THE ROAD!!!!!! After all, big name teams certainly would fear a trip to the BJC in December.
..."We're trying to play some teams to improve our strength of schedule and our RPI. Whether that works out the way we hoped, we're hoping it does". Otherwise, bring on Stoneybrook and IPFW again. At home, of course.

ham55 wrote:They lost to Wisconsin twice. That right there shows they're not better than Wiscy is. I would like go see PSU try and stop Vasquez of Maryland, too.

And Ham said he doesnt follow psu bball!! :shock:

It wasn't just the non-conference, they lost garbage conference games, too.