Attention all basketball junkies. The wait is now over.

In the next nine days, Rec Hall will showcase some of the nation's best men's and women's basketball teams.

The payoffs for moving to the Big Ten roll in big time in the next week and a half.

The party begins tonight with the supposed No. 1 men's team in America, Indiana, invading Rec Hall in an ESPN contest. We all know how much "The General," Robert Montgomery Knight, loves Happy Valley, so let's make sure he doesn't ever forget us.

Then as the weekend rolls in, so do the No. 5 Lady Lions from their three-game roadtrip. On Friday, perennial Big Ten power Purdue comes to town to avenge its loss last month to Penn State.

Indiana's women's team will then make its trek into Rec Hall on Sunday, and the Lady Lions will be looking for blood. Penn State suffered its first loss of the season at Bloomington in a game marred by questionable officiating (much like Sunday's contest against Iowa) and lackluster shooting by the Lady Lions (ditto on Sunday).

Next Tuesday, it's the big women's game as No. 2 Vanderbilt, featuring 6-foot-10 Heidi Gillingham comes to Rec Hall. This game will truly show how legitimate this year's Lady Lions are.

And if that wasn't enough for you, those playground legends, a.k.a. the No. 4 Michigan Wolverines, will try and show Penn State how big and bad they are on Feb. 17.

If only Steve Fisher could find a way to coach them . . .

Remember that tipoff has been pushed back an hour to 7 p.m. by the gods at the Big Ten office so the game won't conflict with the State of the Union address. Just what I wanted to do when I got home -- watch Slick Willie tell us a few more lies about himself and his policies.

Bud Meredith, the athletic ticket office manager, said student attendance at various sporting events on campus is pretty abysmal, at best.

Only 2,200 enrollees have men's basketball season tickets. I'll give the student body the benefit of the doubt and say that total student attendance is near 3,000 per game.

Then there are the Lady Lions. Attendance has averaged about 3,200 per game, only 1,000 of which are students, Meredith estimates. It was especially disappointing when only 4,200 people showed up for the clash between then-No. 4 Ohio State and then-No. 6 Penn State. Hopefully we can do better than this next week.

I never saw home court advantage more evident in my life than at Saturday's men's basketball game against Ohio State.

Rahsaan Carlton made a 3-pointer that pulled the Lions within one, 60-59. But the clockman didn't stop the clock for about 1 1/2 seconds after the whistle blew to signal a Penn State timeout.

Then after a Lions' foul on the inbounds play, it took another second after the referee blew his whistle for the clock to stop. After Ohio State converted both foul shots, there were 8.7 seconds left on the clock.

Still plenty of time to make a basket, but Penn State should've had at least two additional seconds to tie the game.

The game shouldn't have come down to that anyway, but there's no sense crying over things you can't control. Coach Bruce Parkhill has had plenty of things not go his way this season, so what's one more?

Maybe it's time to have the officials run the clocks as well.