There's something weird going on this March that should leave everyone on this campus wondering a few things.

The first one that comes to my mind is just simply, what in the Pittsnogle is going on around here?

March Madness is truly a glorious time of year, but there are some wild things happening. Whether it's a pack of 50-odd sharks attacking spring breakers, or teams Catamounting themselves into Cinderella's slipper, something is fishy. Upsets are what make the tournament so fun.

And at the same time, people like Mike Gansey can single-handedly turn your stomach by robbing you of your hard-earned gambling money.

But losing my lunch money isn't really what's got me, just because I didn't have the Boguts to pick the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The things that keep me scratching my noggin, for one, is how a team like Bucknell could ever beat a team stacked with talent like Kansas, and two, how a school like Bucknell could have a better basketball program than Dear Old State.

Bucknell is a school with fewer than 3,500 undergraduates enrolled. And Vermont, whose coach is easily the best quote of the tournament, only enrolls around 8,000. In the fall of 2004, Penn State had 41,289 students enrolled.

Sure, Penn State plays in a more difficult conference, but it wouldn't matter. That Vermont team, or West Virginia or even Bucknell, would most likely have beaten the Nittany Lions this season.

The law of averages would say that if a school has 42,000 choices, it should be able to put five basketball players on a court that are better than a team with only 3,500 choices.

Apparently not.

More than 23,000 students call West Virginia their university. Now maybe I'm a homer for saying it, but if you were the caliber basketball player that is getting looked at by the West Virginias of the world, why wouldn't you go to Penn State?

Sure, there's no tradition of basketball here, but what do West Virginia or Bucknell have to offer?

Do you know how embarrassing it is to explain how the Bucknell Bison can beat a top-tier team like Kansas while the Lions haven't won a game in the months of February and March the past two years?

That question right there is just salt in the wound opened up by the football team.

A wise man once said "without sports, Penn State would just be Northwestern."

Are we becoming Northwestern?

Have things ever been worse at Penn State, athletics-wise?

I don't know about real students at this university, and I know there are others like me, but I came here strictly for the football.

As my time here nears its final months I realize more and more everyday that the $60,000-plus I have spent have surely been a letdown.

West Virginia had a football team ranked in the top-five last season. West Virginia, people. Is it so much to ask for a school with more than 40,000 students to be better at sports than a team located, in what its Web site called, "the No. 1 small city in America," like WVU?

All I ask for is a Chester Copperpots like Vermont has, or an Ed McCants like Milwaukee boasts. Anyone, really. Just a little hope is all I want.

LJ gave me one great season -- notice how 9-4 is great in Happy Valley these days -- but my four years have been very, well, Jan Jagla-like. And schools like Bucknell are just there to stick it to me.

Because, really, if there aren't any good sports, why not just go to community college?