To submit yourself to the endeavor that is being a Penn State basketball player or coach is to leave yourself vulnerable to the idea the thing you love – basketball – will bring you more sleepless nights and painful heartbreak than it will bring you happiness.
When it’s all said and done there’s no guarantee the effort and sweat will have been worth it. There will be moments that flash in the pan, a reminder that you really did want to partake in all of this, but there will also be those moments when you question how much you truly want to be part of it.
To what degree this inflicts a player or a coach is up to the individual, but as Penn State headed into the offseason absorbing the heartbreak of an NCAA Tournament that wasn’t, coupled with a last-second resignation/firing of its head coach – a firing the program wasn’t anticipating or hoping for and still grapples with – it would have been easy to just pack it all in.
See in a normal year there is always the feeling of playing for something bigger than yourself. Whatever the Bryce Jordan Center’s shortcomings might be, when the crowd comes you’re playing for them. When your parents arrive you’re playing for them. Someone is always watching, someone is always there to root you on. You’re wearing a Penn State jersey, and Penn State has always been there for you. Until the day you start to question if that’s true.
But when you take that all away you are left with nothing but the game, and left with nothing but yourself, your teammates and the ball. Things simply feel different.
“They’re great kids,” someone inside the program texted earlier in the week as Penn State started on a stretch of games against ranked teams.
And as Penn State beat No. 14 Wisconsin 81-71 on Saturday afternoon – the program’s first win over the Badgers since 2011 – it was the continuation of all the reasons why you might feel compelled to agree.
Take for instance the season so far, two overtime losses, two losses in Big Ten play by eight total points and two blowout losses. Everything has been so close but so far, a close loss to Ohio State earlier in the week the latest exercise in the unkind truth that “almost winning” doesn’t count in the standings. An example that for all the effort, you can still find yourself on the wrong end of the final score, no matter how badly you want it.
It has never been a question of effort though, center John Harrar an ongoing example of that. He’s not quite big enough, not quite athletic enough, but damn sure not going to be faulted for his effort. On Saturday he scored 17 points, pulled down eight rebounds and made 7-of-11 shots from the free throw line.
And as he converted a basket and fell to the floor with just minutes to go in regulation, he yelled and screamed and flexed and screamed some more. For a brief moment all those demons were gone. He wasn’t just screaming for the moment, he was letting it all out.
Who could blame him.
“He has always been a super unselfish kid,” Coach Jim Ferry said after the game. “He’s putting pressure on me I’ve got to start running plays for him.”
In many ways Harrar is Penn State basketball in the flesh. He is good, but sometimes not quite good enough. He is admirable and urged on by fans who want the best out of him but know his limitations.
And every once in a while he rewards those onlookers with a win and what they got Saturday; maximum effort, maximum potential, maximum soul-pouring, sweat-dripping effort.
Penn State won on Saturday after trailing 34-31 at the half, having held Wisconsin’s methodical offense within reach. Then in the second half the Nittany Lions never missed more than two shots in a row, Myreon Jones continuing his wizardry for 20 points while Izaiah Brockington muscled in 18 of his own as the supporting cast provided the rest.
Late in regulation the Badgers charged, but shot after shot, rebound after rebound, free throw after free throw, the Nittany Lions fought off that all-too-familiar vibe that can infect the Jordan Center, a feeling that today’s win was about to be a loss. A feeling that the good thing you thought you were going to feel was set to turn rotten before it had ripened.
“A great win for our program,” Ferry said afterwards.
The words “our program” are full of weight. Ferry may not make it more than the next few weeks as Penn State’s head coach, many of these players may not make it much longer than that as Nittany Lions. There is uncertainty in what lies next for everyone inside the basketball program, there is only now.
Which is why Penn State’s win on Saturday is a testament to giving a damn about the guy next to you. Sure, these basketball players want to play basketball, but in what might be the final moments of an era in the programs history, they’re swinging as hard as ever, trying as much as they ever have, and giving 110% in spite of those who may have very well rooted for a collapse and easier choices to be made in its wake.
For a program that has had its heart ripped out, its coach cast aside and its future handed up to the powers that be – winning anyway might be the best form of protest.
Winning for each other that is. Since after all, nobody else is here to see them do it.
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