First off, we are aware that our Boilers played an exhibition last night...but since I spent the afternoon with my family, J lives in Jersey and Teddy was asleep (I guess), we weren't able to give any first hand take about it.  I believe the game is on BTN tomorrow and I have my DVR set for it...so I'll give my take of what I saw after I get to watch it.  Based on articles, interviews and stats alone, it sounds like Barlow played great, Hummel didn't play too much and a couple guys looked a little flat.

On Friday, thanks to friend of the site, Ed, I'll be there and will be able to talk a bit about the game v. Northern Illinois and the festivities surrounding the official opening of the re-vamped Mackey Arena...but I'm told it's not going to be completely-renovated/rebuilt until around January 1.  Even still, everyone who I've talked to that's seen the Arena itself is very impressed with the look and feel of the new old arena.

FYI
The early signing period for men's college basketball is November 9-16.  So look for Matty's '12 class to all officially become Boilers this week.

Cardinal back in the nest
As long as the NBA strike continues, Boiler great, Brian Cardinal will be an assistant in the athletic department in God's country.

We're huge fans of Cardinal for a ton of reasons, but who wouldn't like a guy who just wants to be back at his alma mater?  Cardinal has a few quarters and dimes in the bank, so he's doing this just because he loves the game and loves his Alma Mater.

I'm not an NBA fan to begin with...and other than a few exceptions, I don't have much reason to hope for the league to figure things out this year.  Now I have even less.

Game of the Century?
On Twitter, someone brought up an excellent point about the 'Bama (AKA Banana, to Dick Vitale) v. LSU game.  Now, let me be the first to say that watching those two after watching Purdue v. Wisconsin shows how fast both of those teams really are.  The team speed by both of these was impressive.  BUT, many in the media say that defensive-minded basketball is ugly to watch and makes the B1G conference games not attractive.

So, couldn't a football game that has little-to-no offense be judged the same way? Probably not by the network that has vested interest in the SEC, but to some of us who like to see scoring, especially when there's no emotional attachment to either team, I can say it.  I like good football, but good football is more than just good defense, in spite of what Les Miles and the PSU coaching staff might think. Granted, your squad is going to win a ton of games playing defense like LSU.

Speaking of Penn State...
J and I spoke this morning about the mess that is currently spinning like toilet water in Happy Valley, and we're in complete agreement about it- anyone who knew about Sandusky's behavior that didn't go to the police should be without a job. Wrecking someone's life, or multiple people's lives, especially children's is never an internal matter.

One of EsPN's writers, who is a PSU alum got it partially-correct when she said Paterno let everyone down in this case...but she was still too soft on the aged figurehead.

There are a ton of PSU students, fans and alums who are defending different parts of the football program and specifically, JoePa, but how can anyone defend these people in this case?

There are rumors circulating that PSU is already seeking a coach to replace Paterno at season's end.  But if Paterno, and any member of his staff that knew what happened and didn't go to the authorities, is still employed by the university in a few months, PSU has not acted correctly.

Perhaps when a coach is no longer active in the day-to-day activities he loses touch with his coaching staff and what they're doing.  BUT, that's not what Paterno's testimony says.  It says he knew and he left it up to his boss to handle it.  That seems a bit odd since many PSU fans pretty much told me that it was Paterno's call when he'd no longer be coach...sounds like he was the boss.

Last thing about this- I always thought Mike McQueary was a pretty good coach who had a bright future. But if he witnessed an old man raping a child and he didn't beat the living crap out of that guy, regardless of it was his boss or not, he should never coach again.

There's a ton of blame to go around in this disgusting case in Pennsylvania.