PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- After the NCAA tournament spurned the men's basketball team, Coach Bruce Parkhill let his feelings be known about the committee's selections.

There were a lot of bad feelings after that, but Wednesday's quarterfinal win over Atlantic 10 rival Rutgers just might have healed the wounds. It's not the Big Dance, but 48 other NCAA teams aren't going to be playing at Madison Square Garden on Monday. Penn State will be.

Parkhill, in fact, says he has forgotten about not making the NCAA tournament.

"That's kind of history right now," Parkhill said. "We've tried to focus and move on from there. I'm as proud a coach right now as any coach in the country. It's just an amazing year."

But DeRon Hayes, who along with Ed Fogell scored 16 points in the game -- including some big ones down the stretch -- still thinks about not making the NCAA.

"It was a great win," Hayes said Wednesday night. "We needed this win. I think we've proven that we deserved an NCAA bid and someone made a mistake."

"This is kind of fun," Fogell said. "I think we could have been in the NCAA. While it would have been nice going there, I think not going there and getting the NIT and playing well here, it's been very good for us."

The Lions also achieved another milestone with the win. They had not won at Rutgers since 1987. When the Lions were down at halftime, it looked like the curse would hold true. But Parkhill said that wasn't a big deal in his mind.

"We won in here a few years ago," Parkhill said. "I think you all make too big a deal about that. I think (Rutgers) had a tough time winning in Rec Hall. But I'm real happy about it."

The Lions have gotten to the Final Four with three hard fought games. Wednesday's game was even tougher than the other ones. In the first half Monroe Brown got into a shoving match as did Dave Degitz in the second half.

And it wasn't just limited to the floor. With under five minutes left in the first half the 6,827 in attendance were warned for throwing objects onto the floor.

"I was pleasantly surprised that it was intense as it was," Parkhill said. "To the credit of the Rutgers fans that were here, and to the credit of our fans that were here, it was a great atmosphere. It wasn't as intense as last year, but it was more intense than I thought it would be."

Now the Lions will play Vanderbilt at 7 Monday night in Madison Square Garden. In the other semifinal, which will be played at 9, the winner of last night's DePaul-St. Louis game will play the winner of tonight's Hawaii-New Mexico game.

The Penn State basketball program, which hasn't seen the Final Four of a national tournament since 1954 when they made the NCAA Final Four, will be charting unknown territory when it goes to New York.

"It hasn't hit me yet," Parkhill said. "I'm not sure it will until it's all over. Obviously Penn State has never been there. I've never been to Madison Square Garden. I don't think many of our team members have been there either.

"I think it will be very exciting for the guys," he continued. "We've played in big-time arenas before, but we don't have a lot guys from (New) Jersey and New York and Pennsylvania. I don't think we'll be scared."