Oh, losses to Shippensburg and Stony Brook, how much everyone would love to forget thee.

Those dreadful efforts from the Penn State men's basketball team have been harped on enough. Beaten like a dead horse, if you will. Mutilated to the point where its corpse would be unfit for the goriest of horror films and the head would be hard to identify under any bed sheet from "The Godfather" trilogy.

And then the Nittany Lions just had to pull me back in -- with a win.

After an 80-71 victory against Morgan State (0-6) on Saturday, there was a disturbing trend. Penn State coach Ed DeChellis heard his players fuming with frustration because they only had a three-point lead on the winless Bears at halftime.

"Don't play the shirt," DeChellis said. "You play the game."

Maybe it's time to consider switching the shirts.

This was the third game where the Lions have played down to their competition. Jamelle Cornley already said after a 59-51 loss to Stony Brook that he can only

say "embarrassing" so many times, considering his team had already lost to the Division II Red Raiders in exhibition play.

Maybe Penn State should play more teams from major conferences, like the Big East or the ACC. Not to say they should go heads-up with the NCAA's top NBA farm teams too often, like they did with the high-flyers from Georgia Tech, but maybe they need more games against middle-of-the-road schools from conferences more recognizable than Stony Brook of the America East.

More road games, like an upcoming showdown with Seton Hall, could be good. Seriously, the Lions almost seem like a 30-year-old college grad scared to move out of his parents' house, as they have only two away games before they head into the Big Ten season.

Yes, getting teams to come to State College is a hassle. When Bob Knight coached at Indiana he had so much disdain for the trip to Happy Valley that he called the in-conference game a "camping trip," basically saying it was in the middle of nowhere.

Loyal followers seemed more enthusiastic about a four-point road loss to then-No. 24 Georgia Tech than the home victory against Morgan State. Despite 20 turnovers against the Yellow Jackets, there was energy down in Atlanta.

Penn State outshot Georgia Tech percentage-wise and out-rebounded the Jackets 28-21. The game was by far the Lions' top scoring performance, besides the Morgan State game, as they hit seven points above their average with 73.

In all reality, any performance against the Bears can't be weighed too heavily when seeing a sudden point surge. Their head coach, Todd Bozeman, said that his team's play was so sloppy it inspired him to ask his stat crew to track "bonehead plays."

On Saturday, fans weren't quick off their feet between timeouts and not really up for a game versus the Bears, a team that finished 329th out of 334 men's basketball teams in RPI last season.

"We are only up three at the half and the place is dead and we are dead," Mike Walker said. "We had a great student section today and we just come out and play flat. So it's really hard to get people out to the games when we come out and play flat like that."

A nine-point victory doesn't really deserve harsh criticism. DeChellis also made sure to compliment players like Geary Claxton, who took an errant jump shot by Cornley and slammed it home for two of his 15 points.

Claxton might be willing to slam down hard on the rim with a bandaged right hand, but human nature is still tough to crack. After the loss to Stony Brook, DeChellis said that Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano had the toughest job in the nation before his unbeaten Scarlet Knights lost to lowly Cincinnati, insinuating that it's hard for any team to play hard against a lesser competition.

Walker, too, realizes that his team has more passion when it plays better opponents. It was his 3-point shot at the buzzer against Bucknell -- a preseason top-25 opponent -- that sealed the deal. And they need to play with passion.

"When we do that, we can stick with teams in the top 25," Walker said after the Morgan State game. "When we don't do that, we lose to teams like Stony Brook and Shippensburg."

Those two teams will just never go away.