I just got back to Altoona after seeing Pitt defeat a determined Penn State team 84-71, going to Champs Sports Bar with Shawn and Patrick afterwards, and then visiting my parents (who live in State College) for awhile. Keeping in mind that I don’t understand the mechanics of basketball as well as Chas does, these are my brief impressions of the game.

First off, the Bryce Jordan Center may be the easiest sports venue to get to that I’ve ever seen — remarkable, given that the hardest sports venue to get to that I’ve ever seen is directly across the street. Even though there seemed to be around 10,000 fans in attendance, the only traffic backup coming in was due to a regularly-functioning stoplight at the corner of Park Avenue and Porter Road. The parking was surprisingly free and ample in the massive commuter parking lot that used to be called Lot 50 (between Beaver Stadium and Bryce Jordan). Overall, we made it from my parents house to the BJC in about the same amount of time that it would have taken us to do so on a normal day in July.

The Bryce Jordan Center is an attractive and functional enough building, although I personally feel that the Petersen Center is architecturally more impressive (especially on the exterior and in the lobby). However, where the BJC really fails is in the massive size of its floor — apparently built more for monster truck rallies than basketball games (the floor cannot be refrigerated for hockey, so we can’t blame that). People in the first row of permanent seating behind the basket on either end are easily 50-70 feet away from the action. Fortunately, our seats were at mid-court.

Probably a fifth to a sixth of those in attendance were fellow Panther fans — enough that our “LET’S GO PITT” chants were loud and clear across the arena. In the second deck where we were (Section 206), probably 80% of us were Panthers. At times, the Penn State student body did an impressive impression of the Cameron Crazies. But most of the time, only five or six of them were jumping up and down while we had the ball.

The clear comic highlight of the game occurred when a bunch of Panther fans a few sections over started chanting “BCS! BCS!” It quickly grew into a deafening chorus. In any case, I was surprised how offensive that seemed to be to the Nittany Lion faithful. Immediately, a chorus of boos and “OVERRATED” chants came flying back at us. After the Nittany Lion on the other side of my wife threw that particular line at me, I yelled back that at least we beat Boston College and that teams who have only had one winning season in the past five shouldn’t be throwing stones. Then my wife told me to shut the hell up. Most of you already know that I have a notoriously short fuse around Penn State fans.

But it was interesting to see how much in contempt they still hold Pitt football. To be fair, the feeling is mutual.

As for the game itself, Penn State seemed to be on fire from the perimeter and especially from behind the 3 point line (Mike Walker). This was partially due to some poor perimeter defense on our part: we regularly overpursued moves to the inside (can you tell that I’m more of a football fan?). Well, I guess it’s better to discover that we may have problems on the perimeter now than when we’re in Syracuse facing McNamara.

Of course, we got a sh!tload of fouls called on us. I expected that in a Big Ten arena, and I suspect that Dixon did too. I can live with that. Hey, it’s part of a Big East pedigree.

Really, I was flat-out impressed with Penn State’s heart in this game. Whereas they were clearly intimidated in the Petersen Center last December, they never really gave up this time. I’ve always liked their head coach, Ed DeChellis. His aggressive style may finally be taking hold up in State College. But in the end, Carl Krauser stopped Penn State’s biggest run and saved us again. Jeez, do I like that kid.

I’ll leave it up to Shawn and Pat to describe Penn State’s absolutely hideous dance team: all ballet and Broadway moves and none of the strip club fare that we Panther fans have come to expect. And of course, all white.

Hail a win over Penn State. For us old-school Panther fans, it’s always a good thing… even if its in synchronized swimming.