{"id":1138,"date":"2011-01-20T10:04:31","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T17:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/?p=1138"},"modified":"2011-01-20T10:04:31","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T17:04:31","slug":"espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN&#8217;s Eamonn Brennan: Big Ten title contender: Penn State?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;OK, OK, so I&#8217;m clearly exaggerating. The Penn State Nittany Lions are not Big Ten title contenders. But like all exaggerations, this one is born from at least a kernel of truth, which is the simple fact that in their past four games, if you couldn&#8217;t read the name on the front of their jersey and had no access to their prior performance, you&#8217;d think Penn State was one of the best teams in the Big Ten.<\/p>\n<p>No, seriously. It&#8217;s true.<\/p>\n<p>In their past four games, the Nittany Lions are 2-2. They&#8217;ve beaten No. 19 Michigan State and No. 16 Illinois. They&#8217;ve lost to No. 2 Ohio State and, last night, to No. 13 Purdue. Both of those losses came on the road &#8212; against arguably the Big Ten&#8217;s two best teams &#8212; by a whopping combined margin of four points. More importantly, neither game was a get-close-after-a-last-ditch-comeback-attempt-and-some-missed-free-throws sort of affair. No, in both losses, as in those two huge home wins, the Nittany Lions played a Big Ten title contender close for an entire 40-minute period. In both losses, Penn State had last-second opportunities to win the game.<\/p>\n<p>(On Wednesday night, Penn State fell victim to a rather questionable out-of-bounds call with five seconds remaining that gave the ball back to Purdue and allowed JaJuan Johnson to hit his game-winning jumper on the wing. That call goes the other way &#8212; and it probably should have &#8212; and PSU probably takes home the win.)&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/espn.go.com\/blog\/collegebasketballnation\/post\/_\/id\/21521\/big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\">Big Ten title contender: Penn State? &#8211; College Basketball Nation Blog &#8211; ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;OK, OK, so I&#8217;m clearly exaggerating. The Penn State Nittany Lions are not Big Ten title contenders. But like all exaggerations, this one is born from at least a kernel of truth, which is the simple fact that in their past four games, if you couldn&#8217;t read the name on the front of their jersey &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;ESPN&#8217;s Eamonn Brennan: Big Ten title contender: Penn State?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v16.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ESPN&#039;s Eamonn Brennan: Big Ten title contender: Penn State? - PennStateHoops.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ESPN&#039;s Eamonn Brennan: Big Ten title contender: Penn State? - PennStateHoops.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;OK, OK, so I&#8217;m clearly exaggerating. 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But like all exaggerations, this one is born from at least a kernel of truth, which is the simple fact that in their past four games, if you couldn&#8217;t read the name on the front of their jersey &hellip; Continue reading &quot;ESPN&#8217;s Eamonn Brennan: Big Ten title contender: Penn State?&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PennStateHoops.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PennStateHoops\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-01-20T17:04:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@pennstatehoops\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@pennstatehoops\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"tjb\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/\",\"name\":\"PennStateHoops.com\",\"description\":\"Best independent Penn State Nittany Lion basketball fan site and discussion forum, since 1996\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\/\",\"name\":\"ESPN's Eamonn Brennan: Big Ten title contender: Penn State? - PennStateHoops.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-01-20T17:04:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-01-20T17:04:31+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/#\/schema\/person\/6841f8abc4f72b941ce7226fdecc3d0e\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"ESPN&#8217;s Eamonn Brennan: Big Ten title contender: Penn State?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/#\/schema\/person\/6841f8abc4f72b941ce7226fdecc3d0e\",\"name\":\"tjb\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7fd7fba0aa131ad7c2f1b7f80c6df28b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7fd7fba0aa131ad7c2f1b7f80c6df28b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"tjb\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"ESPN's Eamonn Brennan: Big Ten title contender: Penn State? - PennStateHoops.com","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/pennstatehoops.com\/pennstatehoops-com-has-ceased-operations\/espns-eamonn-brennan-big-ten-title-contender-penn-state\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"ESPN's Eamonn Brennan: Big Ten title contender: Penn State? - PennStateHoops.com","og_description":"&#8220;OK, OK, so I&#8217;m clearly exaggerating. 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