The internet is pretty sweet, sitting here in my house watching SportsNation and with a click of a button I can watch almost any recruiting video. Ok not a single click, but with a little work I can watch a lot of highlight reel. That may or may not be why I’m still up at 1 at the morning but I digress. Tonight I decided to check out Taran Buie in person and see if he is really as impressive his news reel says he is. Watching a player in person can really help you get an idea of how good he is when the editing software isn’t around. So is Buie the real dea? The answer…yea he’s the real deal. Buie was the best player on the floor by far as he had 30 points and made it look pretty easy.

I took quite a lot of video to give you the viewer an idea of aspects of Taran’s game that don’t always make the highlights but are more important on a possession to possession basis. Videos are after the break…Buie is #2

Most people thought that the Lions would head into The Barn and get smoked. For the most part there wasn’t much reason to think otherwise; Penn State is young, unproven and hasn’t played a really good team on the road. Minnesota on the other hand is on a 5 game winning streak and has an amazing amount of depth and age. Playing the Gophers for the first game of the Big Ten season is no small task, playing well in The Barn isn’t easy, and elevating your play to that of a talented team is even harder. The Lions did all of these thing and gave themselves a chance to pull off a pretty big upset. For the most part they did everything they needed to do to win, the mistakes they made just came at bad points in the game. So you can’t fault the effort the youth of this team showed up at inopportune times. All in all there is quite a lot to be pleased with this games so lets take a walk down positive lane. Mainly….because being disappointed sucks.

Well here we are, 8-4 and looking down the barrel of a tough Big Ten slate. That isn’t suggesting that anybody in the Big Ten gets off with an easy schedule but the Lions aren’t starting out with much to look forward to. First up is a trip to The Barn and a Minnesota team that struggled early on but is currently on a 5 game winning streak. As all Tubby Smith coached teams, this years edition of the Gophers lives on stingy defense and the talents of the Lawrence Westbrook, Blake Hoffarber, and Damian Johnson who all average about 11 points a game (Westbrook leads with 12.9).

If the Lions are going to have a chance it this game it’ll come from hitting the outside shot, as all of the teams that have beaten Minnesota this year are ones who could hit it from the outside. That being said the ability to keep the Gophers honest defending the inside and getting the ball to Drew Jones and Jeff Brooks inside the paint will be critical to the Lions success. The Lions are playing decent defense this year so the issue shouldn’t be keeping up with the guard play or banging around on the inside but more of consistent offensive execution. Good ball movement, smart play, and patience will be key to staying around in an arena that the Lions are 1-15 in.

I think everybody misses Stanley Pringle, he was quite, he played hard, and he was fast. Getting a hold of numbers and stats from overseas can be a pain but I did run into this video of him just tonight.

It’s a little know fact that Bob Dylan actually wrote that song in reference to the current basketball recruiting class; as the Lions are beating out teams like Texas A&M, WVU, Butler, Syracuse, Florida, and many other big names schools for some highly regarded recruits. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting somebody who knows that Talor Battle’s younger brother Taran Buie is headed to Penn State this coming year and he was recruited by nearly half the country. Since the team has no scholarships available outside of the one given to Buie, it is very likely that he’ll be the only member of the 2010 Class. Since the team is bringing back all of this years starters and adding Buie, there is quite a lot of excitement about what that season will bring. A lot of which will depend on the success of the upcoming Big Ten season just a week away.

Since everybody and their brother (well, 4 guys and Taran’s brother) will be leaving after next year, the quality of recruits coming into the program will be critical to maintaining any sort of success that has been built on a span of the 2 seasons post-NIT. So far the success has been pretty staggering in Penn State regards. On the Ohio State weekend alone the program had visits from:

• Malcolm Gilbert C #10

• Desmond Hubert C #2

Either of these recruits committing to Penn State would be a huge step forward for the program and a greatly improve the chances of continued success. Currently Desmond Hubert looks to be the closest chance we have at nailing a top recruit as Maclome Gilbert is teammates with Rakeem Christmas; a highly reguarded recruit is being sought after by a good third of the country. Hubert currently has Penn State in his Top 4 and values academics as well as basketball, I guess that takes Ohio State out of the picture. His current top 4 include, Delaware, Georgia Tech, and LaSalle. The current convention around the program is that a solid season this year could cause Hubert to fall to the Lions, but as a young player and a ESPN ranking at 92, it isn’t hard to see the top 4 change to some more familiar names.

Came so close to flying

So in a night that had the men’s basketball team taking over America, and the women’s team taking over Oakland it seems that Penn State is well on its way to world domination. American was a tricky team to figure out, this year they have struggled going 2-10 but in their recent history they have made trips to the NCAAs. After scoring over 100 points a few nights before it was also a little up in the air as to what to expect from the Nittany Lions offense. Originally I had predicted this game as one of the OOC games to go to and considering that the 36-30 halftime score I wasn’t too far off at that point. The then Lions took care of business in the second half and pulled away, but for the most part it was one of the better OOC games of the season.

Vlad Moldoveanu gave the Lions a nice post player to play against as he scored 17 points and really showed a lot of poise and skill as a forward, but outside of some streaky 3 ball shooting from Nick Hendra who also scored 17 points the Lions were just too big and too strong for the undersized…Americans?

Sometimes you just feel bad for a team, nobody likes getting crushed by Duke and then having to go on the road again to be reminded of why they didn’t get that scholarship to a fancy basketball school all over again. In their defense, they gave it a good try, but I do suspect that with a 20 point deficit at the half they really just wanted to go play in the snow. Despite the lopsided victory there was still legitimate information to take away from the game.

• Andrew Ott knows what the basket looks like- Finally Ott scored double digits and although mostly from the free throw line he was able to get to the hoop and draw the foul. For whatever reason teams see the need to hack at Ott every time he has the ball, can’t offer an explanation for that, but if he is gonna hit the free ones can’t really complain.
• Tim Frazier is looking confident- Over the past two games Frazier has looked flustered and out of sync, against Gardner-Webb however he looked much more confident, made sharp passes and got to the basket on route to a 18 point game. A key to getting him into Big Ten shape will be finding him shots he can make without much difficulty. Jump shots aren’t  in Frazier’s arsenal on a consistent basis so getting to the rim is key. Despite Frazier’s smaller size he has the athleticism to get to the basket and if he can be successful in doing so he’ll be a great asset.

I owe the Women’s Volleyball team an apology. Yesterday I said that I was leaving all of my sporting marbles with the State High Football team. At the time I had forgotten about maybe the most sincerely loved team on campus and one of the most dominating teams in NCAA history.

There isn’t really a word to describe the type of play the Nittany Lions have produced these past three seasons; everybody knows the numbers, 102 straight wins, 3 straight national titles; but what is really impressive is how they go about it. Almost every football team across the country doesn’t wake up for a game. They will either loose or wait until late in the game to make a comeback. The women’s volleyball team doesn’t mess around, in 90 of their 102 straight wins they have won in 3 straight sets; that is as fast as you can possibly win a game. If you’re lucky you’ll be in Rec Hall for maybe an hour and a half, 15 minutes of which are dedicated to the mandatory intermission between the 2nd and 3rd set. That leaves you with about enough time to go to the bathroom, sit down, ask what the score is, and then find out you’ve already missed the first set.

In a town obsessed with football you would think that high school football would be a well-known event. Although State High football has quite the following, it maintains a relatively low profile compared to the bright lights and swarms of fans the big brother across the street has. Nestled in the heart of downtown, Memorial Field plays host to one of the most successful high school football programs in the state and a team ranked in the Top 50 of the Rivals High football rankings. A team that has gone 42-12 in the past 4 seasons can finally make its mark on the High School football world by winning their first PIAA AAAA State Championship when they take on La Salle High school tomorrow at 2 at Hershey Stadium.

The Penn State football season was one of the most dull 10(11)-2 seasons I can remember, the Flyers are playing bad, the Eagles will choke in the post season,and I dont know what to expect from the basketball team quite yet. So heres to you State High, you’re playing for all the sporting marbles I’ve got this year. We’ll start over with a new bag once the Capital One Bowl gets here.

 

Well…..crap.. It’s nice having a player that you can make you feel ok about things when you’re down 2 with a few ticks left. On the other hand, it make that same player missing the shot even more painful. All of that aside it was quite the game tonight in front of the largest crowd this season and against the best team the Lions will face during their OOC play. It’s hard to have fun looking back over a game that you’ve lost, it’s kind of like looking for a box of matches after you burnt down your own house, but I digress..

First of all, Talor Battle is trying his hardest to pick this team back up scoring over 30 points for the second time this season. The issues are coming from the supporting cast, or the lack there of. For a few games it looked like Jeff Brooks was going to be the #2 as odd as that seemed, and then DJ had a coming out party. But besides the occasional 15 point plus game nobody has truly stepped  into the role as the go to number two guy. For a good 90% of the Big Ten season that just isn’t going to fly. Tim Frazier looks young, Chris Babb is streaky shooter, and Andrew Jones isn’t putting up the numbers we need in the post. This very well could be the most talented team Ed has ever coached, but the most unorganized.