Flash back to last Wednesday, when men's college basketball was in the middle of rivalry week. There were some great games being played -- North Carolina was playing host to Duke, Cincinnati was at Louisville and UCLA traveled to intrastate rival USC.

More importantly, there were great things happening in basketball. Living legend Bobby Knight won his 800th game as a coach when the Texas Tech team he has rebuilt defeated Nebraska, 75-49. Fans yelled: "Bobby!" at the top of their lungs for the final minutes of the game and Knight told the crowd that he has never achieved a milestone in front of a crowd he appreciated so much. This is college basketball.

Meanwhile, in Happy Valley last Wednesday, the only thing the fans were chanting was: "Fire Dunn!" The fans -- stressing the word fans, since only 4,000 showed up -- witnessed a mediocre Iowa team come into the Bryce Jordan Center and lay a 75-55 shellacking on Penn State.

This is not college basketball.

In the second half, numerous Jerry Dunn posters came out calling for the dismissal of the eight-year Penn State men's basketball coach. These signs were then ripped away by BJC ushers and security, with BJC spokesmen citing their clause for a positive environment for all teams as the reason. Leann Loftus (freshman-political science) disagrees with the use of signs to badmouth Dunn, and believes it hurts the team and university.

"I don't think it's living up to Div. I at all," Loftus said. "This is the Big Ten, Penn State, and people expect a good team."

Here at Penn State, the students are not getting to experience how great men's college basketball can really be. The fans storming onto the court after a huge victory, the student section jumping up and down throughout the game, or even just attending the games of a team that wins on occasion. Dunn has made those things impossible, and to change that the program needs another coach. Maybe Athletic Director Tim Curley hasn't seen or heard enough displeasure from the fans to mandate the firing of Dunn, whose team has lost 12 straight conference games. But the time has come for Penn State to fire a coach, something that hasn't been done for so long no one can remember the last time. The fans have tried signs and chants, but now it may be time to take it one step further.

There are some options that the fans have not tried yet, and there are three that will make it well known they are not happy.

They can try a walkout. Buy a ticket, walk into the game, and after the first timeout, the fans can make their bolt toward the gates. Maybe if the BJC is as empty as the library on a Saturday night, someone will get the point. Another option is just to boycott the game in general and try to make the crowd as small as possible. For those of you looking to save some cash, this looks like the most reasonable option.

The final option is for all the fans to turn their backs on the court and face the bleachers. And unlike the security guards that take away fans' signs, the BJC workers can do nothing to stop these protests. This form of protest would be the most powerful way to show the fans' displeasure.

If Loftus were to agree on any type of protest against the team it would be to no-show altogether, instead of distracting the players with a walk-out. However, the reason for a walk-out would not be to distract the players, but rather to send a message of disapproval to corporate sponsors, the board of trustees and the athletic department.

When Assistant Athletic Director David Baker was questioned about what would happen if fans attempted any of these protests, he responded that he didn't want to speculate on possibilities. These types of protest could be deemed a bit extreme because they show no support for the guys on the basketball team that are playing their hearts out. But the fans don't want the players to leave, they want the coach gone. Plain and simple, with no disrespect to Jerry Dunn the man, he must go for the betterment of the program. Anyone who has seen this team has watched the players and it is obvious -- they do not respond to Dunn. This is the only way for the fans of Penn State men's basketball to realize what college basketball is about.