GIVE 'EM THE HEATER RICKY...

Do you remember the classic baseball movie, Major League? There's a scene about halfway through it when everything has gone wrong for the team. Besides being mired in a horrible season, the Cleveland Indians are also being sabotaged by their ruthless owner in a ploy to get the team moved to sunny Miami, Fl.

Fed up with being treated like dirt, the players realize that the best way to spoil the owner's plan would be to start playing the best baseball of their life and make the franchise viable again. These sentiments are summed up in a classic exchange in the tribe's clubhouse between the team's manager, Lou Brown (played by James Gammon), the thirdbaseman, Roger Dorn (played by Corbin Bernsen), and the team's captain, catcher Jake Taylor (played by Tom Berenger):

Lou Brown: [at a team meeting] Can I have your attention, please?
[picks up a bat and leans on it like a walking stick]
Lou Brown: I have something I think you all ought to know about.It seems that Mrs. Phelps doesn't think too highly of our worth. She put this team together because she thought we'd be bad enough to finish dead last, knocking attendance down to the point where she could move the team to Miami... and get rid of all of us for better personnel.
Roger Dorn: Even me?
Lou Brown: Even you, Dorn.
Eddie Harris: What if we DON'T finish last?
Lou Brown: She'll REPLACE you with somebody who WILL. After this season, you'll be sent back to the minors or given your outright release.
Jake Taylor: [Jake stands up] Well then I guess there's only one thing left to do.
Roger Dorn: What's that?
Jake Taylor: Win the whole fucking thing.
[long pause]
Willie Mays Hayes: [Willie stands up] Yeah.
Pedro Cerrano: [Pedro pounds his hand] YES!

Well, the NCAA has played its hand, rewarding teams like Maryland and Arizona with tourney bids while making the 2009 Penn State team the first in Big Ten history to win at least ten conference games and one game in the post-season tournament to not earn a berth in the Big Dance. Now, it's our turn.

It might not seem like much, but if this team can go out and win the NIT it could serve as proof that the Lions were tournament worthy. And maybe the NCAA won't notice and maybe an NIT championship isn't worth half as much as a sweet sixteen run, but it's still something and it would be a great sendoff for Jamelle Cornley and the other seniors.

As expected, the senior captain took the news pretty hard when he found out Penn State was not invited to the NCAA Tournament, but he seems to have channeled his inner Jake Taylor right in time for the team's game tonight against the George Mason Patriots.

"I know that things didn't really go our way, but there's really no point in me personally to hold my head down when I know that I gave everything I could give," Cornley said. "I know we really, really wanted to get into the NCAA tournament, but it happened and now we're here, so we might as well just win out."
- The Daily Collegian

There's nothing that could replace seeing Penn State's name on those March Madness brackets, but if the Lions can pull it together for one final run, they may still get to raise a banner to the rafters of the Bryce Jordan Center before it's all said and done. Besides, a few more games on national television would help increase exposure for the program and some post-season experience for the younger players could only help their chances of elevating this team in the next few years.

The NIT is not what fans and players hoped for, but it's what they got, so let's just go win the whole fucking thing.