Battle-ing Their Way In

The Maniac was typing up a nice obituary for Ed DeChellis and his pleasantly surprising Nittany Lions when a funny thing happened against Illinois. No, not the 38-33 knee-slapper like last time, this time something genuinely entertaining and aesthetically pleasing; the Nittany Lions roared back.

Despite a few tough calls that went against them, Penn State hung around and hung around. Even after falling behind by double digits, they kept making enough plays to stay close.

I am sure you have probably seen it on SportsCenter already, but Talor Battle's length of the court dramatic lay-up with 0.3 seconds remaining is the shot that probably put the improbable Lions into the Big Dance.

Notice I said "probably". If you listen to the ESPN pundits, I am pretty sure they have 77 teams in the field right now; Penn State's win was a huge one, but not an "automatic" bid by any stretch. Michigan got their BIG win, so did Minnesota. Right now, March Maniacs has Penn State IN, but barely.

We will unveil our "40" sometime tomorrow afternoon
(for those of you new - 34 at large bids + conference champs from Big 6 = 40 slots. It is the easiest way to keep track of the fluidity, and not get caught up in the "win that gets them in" every night on ESPN.)

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