If the Penn State men's basketball team has a crack at the postseason, does anybody turn out to watch?

Such Taoist thought can really occupy the mind.

If ever there's been a time in the last five seasons to jump on -- or even casually cling to -- the Penn State bandwagon, it would be right about now.

Fresh off a stunning win over then-No. 6 Illinois in Champaign, where the Illini had not lost in more than two years, the Nittany Lions are in the best position at this point in the season since Joe Crispin was launching shots in March of 2001.

The Lions are 11-9 overall, with seven regular season games plus at least one Big Ten Tournament game remaining. In order to qualify for the National Invitational Tournament, that ugly older sister of the NCAA Tournament, a team must win more games than it has lost.

Simply put, in order to qualify, the Lions must win four more games.

It is still a bit of a long shot given the recent tortured history of the program, but if Penn State can beat disappointing Minnesota tonight, then duplicate earlier victories over Purdue and Northwestern, that should put the Lions in the No. 8 spot heading into the conference tournament. If this scenario was to be carried out, the eighth seed would pit Penn State against one of those three above teams that would already have lost (at least once, if not twice) to the Lions.

But the possibilities do not stop there.

Tonight's contest against the Golden Gophers opens a three-game homestand for Penn State. Slumping Wisconsin comes to the Bryce Jordan Center on Saturday, followed by underachieving Indiana a week from today. Two wins on the home stretch are not completely beyond the realm of possibility for the Lions.

Then again, neither is an 0-8 performance for the remainder of the season.

Before Saturday's win, Penn State was a combined 0-21 in the months of February and March under third-year coach Ed DeChellis.

And still, DeChellis must even guard against a letdown game tonight and said he hoped the Lions can put Saturday's game behind them.

But will the fans come out to support what has become, in a quick reversal of fortune, the only positive basketball story on this campus?

After Northwestern, Penn State boasts the worst attendance in the Big Ten. The 6,211, on average, who show up at the Jordan Center can make noise when excited, but are rarely an intimidating presence to teams used to playing in front of capacity crowds of more than twice that amount.

Saturday's memorable win should be the marketing department's rallying cry to get students to tonight's game. If that doesn't sell potential fans on why to go to a game, then little else short of displaying the Orange Bowl trophy at every game will.

The marketing department should be having a field day with this recent turn of events. Imagine the possibilities:

"You can't spell Nittany Lions without N-I-T."

"Go-pher the postseason."

"Do you have the Boget-itch for Penn State basketball?" (with an accompanying picture of 6-foot-11 freshman forward Milos Bogetic scratching himself).

Instead, the only thing urging students to attend the game is the usual advertisement at the bottom of a page in this very newspaper.

Tonight, however, is by no means the usual game. This matchup carries with it great consequences for Penn State.

A win, and the Lions continue to take care of business against the other lower-tier Big Ten squads, the teams they need to beat.

A loss, and the wheels may fall off that growing bandwagon, which, in that case, will not be going anywhere come March.