The cloud of uncertainty hovering over Penn State's athletic integration into Big Ten conference competition was lifted Tuesday.

The athletic directors of the member institutions, including Penn State, decided the Lions will vie for the conference crown in men's and women's basketball starting in the 1992-93 season and football beginning in 1993.

The decision ends speculation that began in December 1989 when Penn State became the Big Ten's 11th member. The Lions joined Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue and Wisconsin.

Penn State will send 18 athletic teams into conference competition in the 1991-92 season and will add wrestling along with basketball in 1992-93. Integration will be complete by the 1993 football season, said Athletic Director Jim Tarman.

"I'm very pleased with the decision for a couple reasons," Tarman said. "First, to have the uncertainty out of the way. Even more, when the invitation first came to Penn State, the talk on the part of the Big Ten was that integration of football and basketball wouldn't happen until the mid-1990s.

"We never liked that idea at Penn State and we've been working very hard with the Big Ten to keep attacking that problem until the point where we are now."

Some coaches expressed opposition to Penn State's inclusion when the invitation was first extended, angered by the fact that athletic departments were not consulted prior to last year's decision. Now, the move is official.

The major stumbling blocks have been established Big Ten television contracts with Raycom, ESPN and the major networks and other scheduling obligations that set the timetable in the mid-1990s. Once those were worked out, the conference could include Penn State. In addition, the difficulty of scheduling 11 teams added some concern."

"There was nobody opposed to Penn State when the announcement came out," Tarman said. "There was some opposition to the process."

The Southeastern Conference added Arkansas as its 12th team last year, creating two divisions to simplify the scheduling. The Atlantic Coast Conference will incude Florida State next year, giving the conference nine teams. Despite early speculation, the Big Ten has indicated it will not add a 12th team simply to make scheduling easier. The conference has placed a four-year moratorium on further expansion, said Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany.

The specifics of integration were not determined at Tuesday's meeting. The athletic directors wanted to get the dates set first and then hammer out the details later, Tarman said.

The Big Ten commissioner's office will present specific plans outlining conference play and league championship formulas for football and basketball, Tarman added. The plans, scheduled to arrive within 30 days, will be discussed at the next meeting of athletic directors and women's athletic administrators, April 8-9.

The plans will discuss the number of conference games in basketball. Currently, the Big Ten plays a round-robin schedule in which all 10 schools play each other twice. The regular-season winner, determined by record, garners the conference crown. There is no conference post-season tournament.

The NCAA reduced the number of basketball games from 28 to 27, putting a further challenge on scheduling 11 Big Ten schools. The commissioner's office will propose various possibilities, including 16, 18 or a full slate of 20 conference games, Delany said. There was little support for a post-season tournament at Tuesday's meeting, Tarman added.

"That's a possibility, but not a very probable one," Illinios coach Lou Henson said. "Determining an adequate number of conference games to make the champion legitimate is our main concern."

The football integration is made even more tedious by larger media contracts and long-term scheduling agreements between Division I football institutions. The Big Ten teams currently play eight conference games, within an 11-game limit set by the NCAA. Penn State will play 12 games next year only because it was invited to one of the two inaugural games for the 1991 season.

Penn State has five contractural obligations in 1993 with West Virginia, Maryland, Baylor, Southern California and Virginia Tech. Penn State dropped Notre Dame from its schedule in 1993 to schedule Iowa, but now that game has been cancelled to clean the slate for conference play.

Since the Big Ten teams do not play every other conference member, the matchups are determined on a rotation basis. Since Penn State will vie for the crown and a Rose Bowl berth in 1993, Iowa will be dropped and shuffled among the pool of Big Ten opponents -- Big Ten teams do not determine their choice of conference opponents.

USC has indicated it is willing to limit its eight-year contract with Penn State to only four and cancel the series after the 1994 game. West Virginia and Virginia Tech, former independents, joined the Big East football conference earlier this year and Maryland may have to schedule Florida State as part of the Atlantic Coast Conference schedule in upcoming years. All of these possibilities may ease Penn State's transition.