THANKS FOR NOTHING ESPN

In the interest of full disclosure, you, the reader, should know that I absolutely hate ESPN. So, that being said, you may take the criticism in this article with a grain of salt, although I feel that I have accurately presented the facts as I observed them Friday morning.

And oh yeah...earmuffs.


The best part about good news is sharing it with somebody else. Learning about that promotion you were rewarded with at your job or the 'A' that you earned on an assignment seems to get more satisfying each time we tell a friend about it. It's the reason that most people get married in front of dozens of their friends and family or the reason we celebrate happy occasions with parties instead of celebrating them by ourselves.

When Penn State cut down the nets in Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, I was lucky to have my friends with me to bask in the joy that comes with watching your alma mater accomplish something as distinguished as winning an NIT Championship. Still, when I woke up the next morning, I couldn't wait to hear more about it. I jumped out of the shower just in time to catch the beginning of the 7 a.m. Sportscenter (a show I normally wouldn't consider watching) to see how ESPN recapped Penn State's championship game and relive the high of Thursday night as news of the Lions' victory was shared with millions of viewers around the nation. Yet instead of being awash with pride and fulfillment, I was appalled at ESPN's presentation of what was a great moment in Penn State basketball history.

I turned the television off after the Penn Sate story aired, so I don't know if ESPN ran any other analysis or coverage later in the program, although I doubt that they did. After the montage that started the show featured about four quick shots from the Penn State game, the program opened with news of an NFL trade (five months before the pro football season starts). Then the focus shifted to basketball with highlights from an NBA game and then two quick stories about the coaching vacancies at Georgia and Arizona. Then, the camera cut to a medium shot of anchor Matt Winer and the carnage began.

Over his left shoulder was a graphic that showed the Baylor University logo. No NIT logo, no Penn State logo, just an interlocking 'B' and 'U.' He then waxed sympathetically about the recent history of Baylor Bears basketball, recounting the tragic death of Patrick Dennehy in 2003 and the violations committed by a former coach that resulted in heavy sanctions from the NCAA. Winer continued to praise Bears coach Scott Drew for taking a job that nobody wanted and led into the highlight by saying that the team could win a championship by beating Penn State in the NIT Finals. That was the first mention of the Nittany Lions since the show had begun, setting the Lions up as if they were a villain out to ruin the Cinderella season that Baylor was having.

Before continuing to the highlights that were shown, let's consider the above introduction that Winer gave to the game. There are many ways to write a lead-in to a video highlight, not all of which include centering your story on the team that actually won. The problem isn't that Winer talked about Baylor, it's that he identified the wrong team as the one that was having the more impressive run to the finals. In case he forgot, Baylor was a fucking at-large selection to the NCAA tournament last season! The Bears were 21-11 in 2008 and finished fourth in the Big XII. They brought back four starters this season and were a four-point favorite to win the game against Penn State! And don't try and tell me that ESPN doesn't know what point spreads are, because they are all too eager to run that Hammerin' Hank bullshit during the NFL season and let Chris Berman pick against the spread as that annoying as hell Swami. But, Winer, despite all the evidence of the contrary, sets Baylor up as the underdog for this game instead of Penn State, a team who didn't get itself on NCAA probation for having a coach illegally pay his players and a team who has won more than 20 games just once in the last 16 seasons before this year.

The highlights opened with clips of two Baylor buckets before showing the technical foul that was assessed to the Baylor coach for tossing his jacket after seeing a foul called on his team. Not only did Winer insinuate that Drew didn't deserve the "T," but co-anchor Linda Cohn pipes in with some stupid comment about how he was warm and all he did was take his jacket off. I'm sorry, but when did this "news program" start to resemble the two old guys that sit in the balcony during The Muppet Show and drop one-liners? So we're just going to leave Cohn's microphone open all show long and let her deadpan whenever she wants? Great, really professional.

Even more insulting than having the two banter about how awful of a call this was came when Winer labeled it as the turning point of the game. So a call that was made with 13:25 left in the game that didn't result in a change of possession and resulted in one point for Penn State (since the referee inexplicably blew his whistle as Talor Battle attempted the second shot - a point that was left out of Sportscenter's analysis) was the turning point in a game that would be tied a minute later?

The highlights would go on to show Danny Morrissey hitting a three-pointer and then diving on the floor and busting his lip as well as feature one of Battle's great finishes in the lane towards the end of the game. Then, that was it. No recap of Penn State's season, no playing of Jamelle Cornley's post-game interview or showing the team cut the nets down. Just a table that shows how teams do the year after they win the NIT, as if that has any relevance to how Penn State will do next season!

The coverage that Penn State got on ESPN on Friday morning was insulting, especially considering it won a tournament that was broadcast exclusively by the same network! The way it was presented on Sportscenter made it seem like the only angle that made the championship game interesting was the one seen from Baylor's point of view. There was no mention of the fantastic support that the Penn State fans gave including the 36 buses that traveled all the way from State College to New York. Remember when a dozen buses would go from Scranton to Syracuse to see Gerry McNamara play and Mike Tirico or Sean McDonough would make sure to mention it a million times on Big Monday?!

Why winning a major national tournament garnered so little attention is a mystery to me. Baseball season hasn't started yet, it's still two days before the Final Four, and ESPN doesn't give a shit about hockey anymore since they don't televise the sport any longer - so what else did it have to show that the Penn State win got the shaft? For reference, here's how The New York Times decided to cover the story. What ESPN should realize is that it doesn't make the news, it reports it. Penn State winning a championship was a fantastic story that any talented journalist could have told if he wasn't busy trying to take the lazy Tom Rinaldi-esque let-me-make-you cry angle that the network has fallen in love with. Just because you might not like the story, doesn't mean you can ignore it.

To paraphrase Ray Finkel's mom in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, "ESPN should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell."

FILLING THE CORN(LEY) HOLE

Anybody wondering how the Penn State basketball team would fare next season after the departure of one of the greatest Lions of all time, Jamelle Cornley, had a sneak preview on Thursday night. Just two nights after separating his shoulder in the team's first-round overtime victory against George Mason, Cornley sat out the Lions' game against the Rhode Island Rams, a team that had beaten Penn State earlier in the season. If the game was any indication of how the Lions will do next year without 'Melle, the future is looking bright.

While his energy was certainly missing from the game, a 83-72 Penn State victory, the team certainly showed that it has plenty of viable candidates to replace the senior captains' scoring and rebounding. Not least among them, Jeff Brooks.

Since the wirey sophomore first arrived on campus two seasons ago, the expectations for Brooks have always been bigger than the results. A former runner-up to the title of Mr. Basketball in the state of Kentucky, Brooks was seen as a major recruiting victory for the Lions, and out-of-state gem plucked by the coaching staff to lead the renaissance of the Penn State program. Instead, Brooks has underacheived and frustrated, seeing his minutes dip as the Big Ten season wore on, and losing his starting job to David Jackson. Despite averaging just 16 minutes per game and 3.4 points per game during the regular season, Brooks has blossomed offensively during the first two rounds of the NIT tournament, pouring in a season-high 13 points against George Mason and adding six more against Rhode Island, the first game he's started since February eighth against Wisconsin.

The biggest difference with Brooks appears to be his rising confidence. Too often he would fade away instead of going up strong, appear indecisive with the basketball or just seem overwhelmed on the court. Now, he's making strong assertive moves with the ball in his hands and showing a creativity that could make him a real asset next season.

Brooks was joined by Andrew Jones and Chris Babb as players who stepped their games up to account for Cornley's absence. Jones, who has benefitted from playing alongside a player as tenacious as Cornley, netted a double-double before fouling out and showed a good blend of aggressiveness and finesse in the paint.

Babb has clearly taken over as the heir-apparent to Stanley Pringle. While not as prodigious at driving, he's every bit as deadly an outside shooter, if not better, and has all the tools to develop into a defensive stopper - allowing Talor Battle to conserve more energy for offense.

Should the Lions draw the Florida Gators in the next round in Gainesville, and Thursday's win was the last game in the Bryce Jordan Center for this team, it certainly gave the fans a treat. Not only did it avenge an earlier season loss with a wire-to-wire victory, it gave everybody in attendence reasons to believe that next season just might be better than this one.

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.