Jerry Dunn is the greatest Penn State men's basketball coach of all time.

Now that you have recovered from the shock and retrieved the sports page from the ground, to repeat:

Jerry Dunn is the greatest Penn State men's basketball coach of all time.

I'm serious.

Looking at the program's storied (note the sarcasm) history, it is impossible not to come to that conclusion.

Around here, Dunn-bashing has become the most popular sport for Penn State fans after the football season ends, and those fans are simply not being fair to Dunn.

This is not to say that Dunn does not deserve some of the criticisms he gets. The program never seems to run an offense that integrates the low post. Instead the Nittany Lions appear to be constantly just passing the ball around and around the three-point line in perpetuity for the last seven seasons.

You can say that the offenses have been designed to fit the teams' personnel -- which is true -- but then that would beg the question as to why haven't quality big men (with a few exceptions) been recruited to play in the rough and tough Big Ten? This falls on the head coach's shoulders.

And, yes, the program might well be in better shape with one of those "hot, young, dynamic" coaches that all those McDonald's All-Americans seem to love to play for (see Missouri's Quin Snyder, Florida's Billy Donovan and Michigan's Tommy Amaker).

Yet with the above being said, that simply doesn't change the fact that Dunn is doing a better job in Happy Valley, compiling a better record against better quality competition than any of his predecessors ever did.

A .550 winning percentage over the first six years of his reign combined with two NCAA Tournament appearances (including last year's Sweet Sixteen) and two NIT championship games is a resume that stacks up favorably to any of the nine men before Dunn to hold his job.

John Lawther probably would hold the title of greatest Nittany Lion coach. He coached the team for 13 years and posted a .617 winning percentage and in 1942 qualified for the then-eight-team NCAA Tournament. He also was a pioneer in bringing the zone defense to an accepted national prominence.

John Egli (187-135 from 1955-68) and Elmer Gross (80-40 from 1950-54) also merit mention.

But looking at winning percentages and postseason appearances is comparing the proverbial apples and oranges. Eras change. The amount of games played has changed, as well as the criteria for making the postseason, the number of teams invited into the postseason, and the relative prestige of the NCAA Tournament against that of the NIT.

The most important thing to change, however, is the quality of Penn State's schedule. As bad as the Big Ten has been this year, it is still leaps and bounds above leagues such as the Atlantic 10, Eastern Eight or the old Eastern Intercollegiate Conference.

While Lawther's teams were beating up on such powerhouses as Susquehanna, Navy Pre-Flight, and some school called Muhlenberg, Dunn is competing in perhaps the deepest, toughest year-in and year-out conference in the country top-to-bottom.

Heck, Penn State was playing Juniata as late as 1989. Juniata!

Clearly, playing in the Big Ten is a level of which the Penn State basketball program has rarely been in.

And Dunn has the team relatively competitive year-in and year-out.

Heck, even this year's team has shown some signs of life recently. The way the Lions have stuck together and still compete hard night-in and night-out despite clearly inferior talent and experience as compared to several of its opponents, Dunn deserves some credit.

Look, Dunn may not be the absolute ideal man to head this program.

But Penn State could do a lot worse. This has never been a basketball-rich school with great hoops history. It's not like we are talking about any other coach ever having this program on a level with a North Carolina or an Indiana.

But it has never been closer to being on that level than it has right now, with Dunn at the helm.