"Football is a collision sport and basketball is a contact sport and you have to like that," Penn head coach Fran Dunphy said after losing to Penn State 84-74 Saturday. "But there were too many fouls called."

During the game Saturday, Dunphy and the rest of the 8,500 fans witnessed one of the most boring games of basketball in recent history.

It was slow.

It was not interesting.

And most of all, it was a game that you would have probably turned off or flipped through with your remote.

The game had 59 fouls and more than 70 foul shots between the two teams.

Penn State went to the charity stripe for 48 of those foul shots.

That's right, in a 40-minute game, fans witnessed a class on foul shooting.

Seventy-five times they watched a basketball get tossed, uncontested, at a 10-foot basket. That's more painful than watching paint dry.

"You really can't kick into a rhythm out there," Penn State guard Joe Crispin said.

The reason neither team could get into a rhythm was because they were not allowed.

The officials spent more time blowing their whistles than Crispin spent with the ball in his hands, which is nearly impossible. On countless occasions, Crispin or Penn's Lamar Plummer would dish the ball inside to one of their big men. Within seconds, the whistle would blow.

Now I'm fully aware of the officials wanting to crack down on making the game cleaner.

Last year, at times it looked as if players were getting mugged out there and no one would do anything about it.

Whether it was a SEC game or a Big Ten matchup, guards and post players would get tossed out of the way or knocked to the ground and nothing would be said.

But anyone who has played basketball knows the difference between what is a foul and what is not a foul.

Fans realize whether it is during a pick up game or and NCAA matchup, fouls will be committed. It's just to what extent will they be called.

Penn's best player, Plummer, fouled out with just under seven minutes left in the game.

Plummer put up the numbers that kept Penn in it with 20 points. But when he drew his fifth personal and was asked to leave the game, you could have sent Penn home as well.

The Quakers played tough without him, but Plummer was a creator and it was obvious his departure hurt Penn.

And this is where officials cannot do what they did on Saturday.

They cost Penn the game and took the fun out of watching it.

When you call fouls for tapping a guy on the arm or having players fight for rebounds, you're hurting the game.

Players are told from day one to box out opposing players under a rebound. To be smart but aggressive when you play defense.

But if officials continue to call a foul for bumping a guy as he goes up for a rebound it will not please the fan base in State College and around the league.

Ironically, if this poor officiating were to continue and the plethora of Mickey Mouse fouls continue to be called, Penn State might win the Big Ten because of it.

The Lions are a good foul shooting team.

Think about it, Crispin is 91 percent foul shooter.

And who shoots more than Joe on this team? No one.

If he shoots between 20-25 times a game and is put on the line 12 to 15 of those times he will be easily in the top five in the league in scoring.

Which will make a team filled with perimeter shooters very happy, while the rest of college basketball will suffer.