After watching the Penn State men's basketball team follow a landmark victory over Michigan State with a pair of less than promising defeats, it's a good bet that the 14,686 fans considering whether to ever return to the Bryce Jordan Center are now feeling conned.
Conned into believing the Nittany Lions displayed a run-and-gun offense with a breakneck pace that would rock the Big Ten.
Conned into thinking their school sported the conference's best player, a score-at-will point guard.
Conned into buying that Penn State basketball had finally turned the corner and was NCAA tournament-bound -- again.
And while it's easy to get high after a big win or low after a couple of sour defeats, the fact remains that this year's Big Ten is a crapshoot, with nine teams scrambling from second to tenth place.
Just look at Wisconsin, which caught a couple of bad breaks and suddenly saw its postseason aspirations -- or in its case, postseason rights -- jeopardized after six straight defeats.
Two games later, and Wisconsin is right back in the thick of things amidst the rugged conference.
"[The Badgers] were able to win and get the good feeling back," Ed DeChellis said after Sunday's game. "We need to go back to work and try to get the good feeling back. There is a lot of basketball to be played yet."
The Penn State coach is right.
There are seven regular season games remaining, and forecasting six of them (sorry, Hoosier fans) is just too difficult at the moment.
The Lions travel to Purdue next, the preseason Big Ten favorite that has dealt with the injury bug and now sees itself in Penn State's position after losing two in a row itself.
Tell me you wouldn't have been satisfied to hear that comparison back in November.
Yet a strong start to conference play has spurned a growth of interest in the program, heightening expectations as more and more people began to realize Jamelle Cornley's preseason prediction that his team was NCAA-destined was, in fact, not Joe Namath-like at all.
Cornley may have even underestimated Penn State's potential.
He and Talor Battle acknowledged Monday that the team lacked energy after the win at Michigan State, the aftermath of which had the likes of "bracketologists" and such calling the Lions a tournament squad.
And after outclassing a Top-10 team on the road, why wouldn't the Lions feel the same way?
But last week they seemingly served as Exhibit A of what can happen when a team suddenly falls into a comfort zone in this league.
Supposing that they did, it is at least encouraging that, if not for a once-in-a-generation 0-for-14 showing from beyond the arc Sunday, Penn State would likely be 7-4 in the Big Ten and still in the thick of the tourney talk this week.
Its defense remains stellar, forcing teams to use the length of the shot clock each possession, and Cornley, despite limited touches Sunday, is as big an inside strength as anyone in the Big Ten.
Breaking through won't be easy for Penn State basketball, but then again, when has it ever been?
