BCS TALK

Friday's discussion on the fairness of the current BCS system before a House of Representatives subcommittee will be shown live on C-SPAN. Interested fans can also watch the proceedings live online here. The discussion is slated to run from 10:00 a.m. until 12:30 a.m.

In related news, Joe Paterno told a pack of reporters on Thurdsay night that he would like to see the Big Ten expand to a twelfth team to allow the conference to play a league championship game. It's a move that Paterno thinks would give the conference a better shot a competing for a national title.

"I've tried to talk to the Big Ten people about, 'Let's get a 12th team -- Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt -- we could have a little bit of a playoff,'" Paterno said.

The coach also fielded questions about the possibility of a team from the Northeast winning a national title, something that hasn't happened since the Lions captured one after the 1986 season.

"The only [Northeastern] team that's got a shot would be us, and yet we've got a tough job because the Big Ten is not as visible in the key times as the Southeastern Conference and the Big 12."

TARHEELS CAN'T DAMPEN GREAT SEASON FOR BIG TEN

There's a great exchange in the movie, Rocky, when the loanshark that Rocky works for, Tony Gazzo, has his driver, Buddy, drop off Rocky after a day of collecting. Buddy, who appears on screen only a handful of times but in that brief span makes himself memorable as one of the all-time jerks, looks up at Rocky in the rearview mirror. Balboa's face is pretty scraped up after his fight with Spider Rico the night before and Buddy says to him, "Did you get the license plate number?"

Rocky answers, "Of what?"

"Of the truck that ran over your face?"

On Monday night in Detroit, the truck was an 18-wheeler hauling an oversized load and decked out in Carolina blue, and it smashed the Michigan State Spartans as easily as it has everything else in its path to the school's fifth national championship. The Big Ten champions were no match for the TarHeels, who set numerous offensive records en route to their second blowout victory over Michigan State.

Most fans probably expected to see North Carolina cutting down the nets on the last day of the season, but the ease with which it happened must have surprised some after how well the Spartans had played over the last ten days. Still, Sparty's run to the championship game was just another accomplishment in a great year of basketball for the conference.

Last season, five conference teams finished with an overall losing record and only four schools (Indiana, Michigan State, Purdue and Wisconsin) from the Big Ten were invited to the big dance. Both Michigan State and Wisconsin were able to make it to the sweet sixteen before losing, while Purdue and Indiana failed to make it out of the first weekend. In addition to the poor performance during March Madness (5-4), the conference was embarassed by the early dismissal of Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson after he was caught committing recruiting violations.

This season, the conference featured only two schools below .500 and tied the Big East and SEC for the most representatives in the NCAA Tournament with seven. Overall, the Big Ten went 9-7 and had five wins over higher seeded opponents during the tourney. Moreover, the Big Ten claimed its second straight NIT Title when Penn State defeated Baylor in the championship game in Madison Square Garden.

Perhaps most encouraging were teams like Michigan, Penn State and Illinois who all bounced back from disappointing 2008 seasons to earn post-season berths in 2009 and have solid foundations in place to challenge for big ten supremacy in the very near future.

It was also a year that revealed several individual stars in the making with the entire first-team All Big Ten squad being comprised of sophomores, including conference player of the year Kalin Lucas of Michigan State. Lucas and fellow standouts Talor Battle (PSU), Manny Harris (UM), Jajuan Johnson (PU) and Evan Turner (OSU) ensure that the conference will have some of the best talent in 2010 if they all return to campus.

The Big Ten basketball season might have ended on a sour note in Detroit, but the conference appears to be as strong and as deep as ever, with the future looking very bright.

BIG TEN GOES FOR SWEEP TONIGHT

Michigan State will carry the Big Ten banner into its national championship game tonight against North Carolina, just four days after Penn State represented the conference in the NIT finals. Should Sparty pull off the upset against the Heels, it would be the third time in the last seven years that two teams from the same conference would claim both the NIT Championship and the National Title.

The win would also mark the first major sport championship for the Big Ten since Ohio State's double-overtime victory over Miami in the Fiesta Bowl in January of 2003. Here's a breakdown of championships in both basketball and football by conference during this decade:

CONFERENCE	BASKETBALL	FOOTBALL	TOTAL
ACC	3	1	4
BIG EAST	2	1	3
BIG TEN	1	1	2
BIG TWELVE	1	1	2
PAC 10	0	1	1
SEC	2	4	6

A championship for the conference tonight would certainly help to elevate the profile of Big Ten, which has suffered in both major sports in the last few seasons. Additionally, it would be pretty nice to be able to say that Penn State beat the national champion in its own gym this season.

LIONS MUST CARRY THE FLAG FOR THE BIG TEN

The Penn State Nittany Lions football team spent more than a century carving out a life for itself. Since way back in 1886, the Lions built themselves into an eastern power thanks to strong scheduling and the invaluable help of an English major from Brown who decided to make it his life work to show that a special blend of football and academics could thrive at an agricultural school in central Pennsylvania.

Through its first 100 years program had racked up undefeated seasons and national championships, building a brand easily recognized from coast to coast. Then, in the early 1990s, Penn State decided that it had had enough of going alone. Penn State accepted an offer to join the Big Ten in all sports, playing its first football season in the conference in 1993. However, an argument could be made that Penn State hasn't really been a part of the Big Ten until now.

With much of the nation taking every possible opportunity to insult the Big Ten and point out its inferiority to conferences like the SEC and Big XII, the fans of the eleven schools that make up the country's most popular conference must rally behind Penn State to save its image.

When the Lions became the eleventh team in the Big Ten, the excitement generated in the Penn State program wasn't exactly matched by the other conference members. As a matter of fact, Northwestern didn't want to vote Penn State in until it was assured that it wasn't going to be sacrificed to make room for the Lions.

For the first few years, the traditionally Midwest conference did not take too kindly to the newcomer from the East. Situated about five hours east of Ohio State, the former easternmost school in the Big Ten, Penn State was certainly treated like an unwanted adopted brother by the other conference powers.

The Lions didn't help themselves when they whipped the rest of the league in historic fashion in just their second year as a member, becoming the first Big Ten school to ever go 12-0 and win the Rose Bowl. Over time; however, Penn State started to become assimilated to its new home. Intensifying rivalries with schools like Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin and others helped legitimize the Lions as an official member of the conference, but, perhaps ironically, it was the Lions' struggles that may have done the most to cement the Lions' place in the league.

When Penn State suffered through four losing seasons in five years earlier in this decade, it satisfied fans of the other ten schools to know that not even a team of Penn State's continued success could come in and dominate their conference. It had to bother those fans to see the Lions come into the Big Ten and put up double-digit wins in three of their first four seasons.

Of course, it wasn't just the Lions gaining from its new relationship. Penn State gave the Big Ten a doorway to the Philadelphia and New York television markets, it gave the league a third "national program" along with Ohio State and Michigan, it provided high-profile out-of-conference wins against schools like USC (twice), Texas, Auburn, Texas Tech, Nebraska, Miami, Florida State and Oregon and it provided success in bowl games. As a matter of fact, the Lions are responsible for 18% of all bowl game victories for the conference since 1993.

This season, after fifteen years as a member of the Big Ten, Penn State has seen the top and the bottom of the league standings. Forged by the fires of a decade and a half of close games, upsets and blowouts, the Lions are no longer the odd man out in the history-rich conference. This season, more than any other in the past, the Big Ten is depending on Penn State to save it from the attacks of pundits, experts and fans who have cruelly and unexpectedly turned on the traditionally-revered conference.

Now, it is Penn State that must carry the flag for the conference that absorbed it just a short time ago and prove that the Big Ten is not the paper thin league it has been wrongly labeled as. It is Penn State that must deliver back to the conference the respect it once had, by taking on a giant from the Big XII or SEC and be the one left standing. And, for perhaps the first time, it will be the entirety of the league's fans that will be in its corner.