Call me selfish. I want a big-time men's basketball program, a national power.

I know, I know. I should count my blessings. It is special enough having a football program of such heights. I should be satisfied with that. By far, the vast majority of college students attend schools that are not nationally renowned for anything athletic, unless of course you count cans of Milwaukee's Best consumed per capita as a sport.

Yes, having a football team that has been preseason No. 1 in the nation twice in the last four years with a coach approaching deity status playing in the third-largest stadium in the country in front of a packed crowd should be enough to satisfy me.

Especially when you couple that with a competitive Big Ten basketball team that consistently finishes the year in some type of post-season play (albeit the NIT and not the Big Dance).

I should be satisfied, but I am not.

Case in point: Wednesday night, Penn State hosted sixth-ranked Illinois. A top ten team in town should be cause for an electric campus buzzing with excitement. The Bryce Jordan Center should have been rocking and filled to capacity. At a school with a "big time" program, it would have.

But what do we get? An announced attendance of 8,953 in a huge, corporate, lifeless concrete monstrosity and relatively little atmosphere or emotion considering the opponent and circumstances of a thrilling overtime win.

Fast forward to the next night. North Carolina at Duke. An overflowing crowd in a true on-campus fieldhouse. A student body oozing passion and enthusiasm and love for its Blue Devils. Dickie V in the house. A national television audience and, oh yeah, two top-five teams.

I want that here. I want students on campus talking about the Nittany Lions. I want to be competing for Big Ten championships and high NCAA seeds. I want excitement and love for our basketball team. I want blue-chip recruits and national players of the year.

Cumon, do you think that Penn State students would camp out in tents at the ticket office for three weeks to get in to the Penn State-Michigan State game?

As amusing as the notion of "Dunn-ville" is, most students here are so apathetic towards the basketball team they wouldn't be willing to sleep under a sheet tent around their own bed for one night for Penn State tickets, because of the effort involved in propping up the sheet.

Yes, I know that the student section does get loud during games and that the atmosphere is hardly funeral-like. And I do not blame the students anyway. Why should everyone get washed up in excitement for a team that, in its best year imaginable, teeters between an NIT championship and a second round exit in the NCAA tournament?

I also realize that the Indiana game on Saturday was sold out. But, please, does anyone not attribute that to the heavy alumni presence for a weekend game versus a national program? I would be willing to wager that many of the rich alumni came in the hopes of seeing Bobby Knight, not realizing he had been fired some six months earlier.

The school with national powers in both football and basketball is rare. Very rare. UCLA comes to mind. The recent rise to prominence of the basketball programs at Florida, Tennessee, and Ohio State might put them into this elite category. Michigan certainly was worthy before the sudden collapse of the basketball team. Last year, Wisconsin won a Rose Bowl and made it to the Final Four.

But more typical are the Nebraskas, Florida States, Miamis, and Notre Dames. Or the Kentuckys, Indianas, North Carolinas, and Connecticuts. One of the two programs being at the top seems to be all a university can handle.

Somewhere right now, the night sports editor at the Duke newspaper is decrying his 0-11 football team playing in front of a barren stadium with no atmosphere or energy.

Yes, I should be happy with what I have in terms of Penn State athletics.

But I still desire more.

Go ahead and call me selfish.