It’s a game like this that just makes me love and hate everything about college basketball all at the same time.

Every team only gets one shot to make its mark.  Every year there’s a different feel, different players, a different set of characteristics to celebrate and detest.

If you haven’t already figured it out, Penn State won in Gainesville, in a game that would’ve meant so much more if it had been in November or December. Maybe then we wouldn’t have had to play it in March. But there’s no use crying over spilt milk.  I’ve spent the better part of the past couple weeks doing that, and it’s really depressing.

So yes, Penn State won, and in the meantime I gained some perspective about this team.

This is the first Penn State basketball team I watched and cheered for and cared about.  As you probably know, I’m a freshman, and even though I’ve followed Penn State football for as long as I can remember, I never cared about their basketball team, and I think that was more or less the common feeling amongst us football fans.  I’ve always been more of a college basketball guy, too, but I guess I just never considered Penn State basketball as something worth caring about.

And now I can say that I truly missed out.

From the first minute of the first game I ever got a chance to see, this year’s season opener against William and Mary, I fell in love.  I showed up an hour early and was among the first couple dozen people there.  I got a seat right at half court, maybe a row or two back, and it was incredible.  I’d never been so close to the action of any sport in my life, and I was actually dissapointed.  I wanted us to have a good basketball team, that people could care about, but here were maybe 2,000 people, most of whom showed up about 10 minutes before the tip-off, who sat on their hands and just watched.

This wasn’t what I was expecting.  Call me naive, but I’d only ever seen Duke and UNC and Syracuse and UConn and Michigan State where the students were painted and the stadium was rocking.  I’d seen what we did for football, and I was shocked that it didn’t carry over.

But I didn’t really care, because from that first moment, I became a cock-eyed optimist.  I’d been through the dark years of the Mets, the Jets, and the Islanders, and you know what? Every single year, I would pick my team to win it all.  I guess if you don’t aim high, there’s nothing to aim for.

And from the first minute, when I saw Jamelle Cornley and Talor Battle and Stanley Pringle giving it their all, I didn’t care that nobody picked us to do anything.  I hadn’t known who these guys were outside of stats and highlights, and what people had written in newspapers and on blogs, but that night, I didn’t need anything else.  I just knew that this was going to be a team I was going to get behind, and love rooting for.  I could see the heart, the grit, the determinism that would become the rallying point of this team.  But even I didn’t realize how attached I was going to get.

We beat William and Mary, and a bunch of other schools, and that’s probably where it all came together.  As the weak non conference opponents gave way to the competitive Big Ten schools, more and more people took note.  We started to fill up the Bryce Jordan Center.  An hour early wasn’t cutting it any more.  There was actually a “We” in “We are Penn State.”

But as has been chronicled over and over again, we came just close enough for it to hurt like a bitch after Selection Sunday when we didn’t hear the committee call our name.

It’s a sentiment I’ve been trying to express; there is no feeling so bittersweet as an NIT run.  It reinforces everything we don’t want to hear. We’re just good enough to be not good enough, we came so close but fell just short.

But does it even matter that this was the NIT?  Penn State just finished off a road win against an established, big time college basketball team, with a big time coach, and a big time player.  You can make what you want of wins over George Mason and Rhode Island, but Florida is a real team, and this is a real win.  Don’t tell me this doesn’t really matter.  Don’t tell the players that this doesn’t really matter, that it’s just something to watch while waiting for the NCAA Tournament to start up again.

What does it say about Mel and Stan that they’re seniors who never got the chance to play on the big stage, but that they’re giving all they can give for this team?  For Jamelle Cornley, who has separated his damn shoulder three separate times for this team to come out with a bandage on his arm and go for 23 and 12, for Stanley Pringle, who is still probably better known for his library transgressions than his playing career, to hit 5 big threes.  Hell, even Danny Morrissey, who I suddenly feel really bad for killing in this space over and over again, has done nothing for this team than bust his balls every minute he’s out there.

It took a game like this for me to realize the bittersweet beauty of college basketball.

What will be of Jamelle, of Stanley, or Danny? We’ll probably never know. They’ll never play in the NBA.  Frankly, they’ll probably just fade into obscurity.  But I’ll always remember this team, and those players.  I’ll remember them as the first class I ever saw off, the first seniors I ever shed a tear for.  I don’t care about how this team will fare next year, without them.  This isn’t the time for that.  This is the time to look ahead, to MSG, and hope that these seniors can come away with a hell of a consolation prize.

It’s something I would’ve signed up for before I entered the BJC for the first time, but now, I’m still wishing I didn’t have to.

I don’t regret showing up 3, or 4 hours early for every home game.  I don’t regret screaming my lungs off, whether in celebration, or to yell at Jeff Brooks when he pulls up for a three.  I don’t regret the hours of time I’ve spent on this blog, trying to at the very least spread the word about this team.  I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for anything.

Except maybe an NCAA tournament run.

So I’m sorry, Jamelle, Stanley, Danny, for every bad word I’ve ever said about you.  It was done with love, and admiration, and all I can do is offer my profound thanks, for everything.

And to Talor, Jeff, Chris, DJ: you’ve got a hell of a legacy to carry on.

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