After nearly 11 hours on the road and only three hours or so of sleep afterward, your three men's basketball writers are back in town to continue following Penn State's run to the NCAA tournament.

Apparently, we weren't the only ones feeling the lingering effects from a late night in Columbus. With his team off from practice today, Chris Babb was set to come in for the day's final massage. Unfortunately for him (and myself, who was scheduled to interview him) the freshman's car ran out of gas and he was about 45 minutes late. He was still nice enough to give me some time, however, and you can read about how he's dealing with his increased role in the coming days.

As for Ohio...

The trip wasn't the most entertaining ride of my life, but it had its high points.

One was actually when we passed by Clearfield and stopped for lunch at a KFC. Nearby were your typical neighborhood conveniences --- McDonald's, gas stations --- and a giant adult video store. The highlight, however, was the giant billboard planted in front of it with a sketch of a nervous looking young girl that read: "Pornography Pollutes."

Anyway...

We arrived in Columbus around 5 p.m. and had a little bit of time to kill, so we walked around and checked out the Horseshoe and Ohio State's other athletic venues. The place is completely different from State College, which is basically a college with a town. Columbus, meanwhile, is a huge town that gathers around its Buckeyes, which are almost like a pro sports franchise out there. You almost forget that the place was an actual college campus where students, cough, learn. There were just so many different athletic facilities and it was all spread out. I know it's a big city and we didn't have the time to see it all, but there wasn't a classroom or dorm in sight.

Inside Value City Arena, the fans were great, but I'd say a strong majority were locals and their kids, not students. (Although the students filled out each section behind the baskets.) As one member of the PSU basketball program who shall remain unnamed said to me, "It was a wine-and-cheese crowd." The stadium also had a very annoying DJ come out during commercial breaks, but I believe Brown touched on that more than enough last night.

Biggggg thanks to the family and friends of Jamelle Cornley, all of whom were nothing but helpful as I pestered them throughout the night about the senior's last game home. His parents, Hank and Dorcella, were especially accommodating. I ran into Jamelle's mother in the parking lot before the game and she couldn't have been nicer and more welcoming.

I sat behind them for about the first 10 minutes of the game, but when the seats began to fill up I found myself moving all over the place, from the aisles to the tunnels and even almost getting run over by the Ohio State marching band in the process.

After interviewing Jamelle's aunt, Pamela, I almost slipped off a step in the corner aisle of the section and nearly bumped into someone. As I turned around to apologize, I realized I had been back-to-back with Erin Andrews for God-knows how long.

Cornley's section and the nearby Bucks' student section had a nice back-and-forth going all game. I can't exactly print what the students were saying, but Jamelle's family and friends took it all in good fun and weren't afraid to dish some of it back.

One thing both sides could agree on was the once-again awful officiating by Ed Hightower. I had heard rumors that he wasn't very fond of the elder Cornley back in his playing days at Illinois State, and Hank was quick to mention to me that he was T'd up a number of times by Hightower back in the day.

But Thad Matta's reaction to Hightower was the best, as the Bucks' coach was asked in the postgame press conference about the video review surrounding B.J. Mullens being fouled with just under six minutes to go in the game.

Matta simply threw his arms up, wondering out loud himself and saying the reporter had to ask someone else if he wanted a clarification on that situation.

The ride home was uneventful, except for reaching the highest point of I-80 east of the Mississippi --- at 4:01 a.m., as Mink properly noted. If that wasn't enough, approximately two minutes later, Ashley Simpson's "Pieces of Me" came on the radio, providing a confession session from the three of us that the song was, well, not that bad.

We arrived back to the Collegian office around 5 a.m. to drop off the car, and even got to read our stories that we wrote only hours earlier since the publishers were dropping off today's paper as we left.

All in all, the trip was good and well worth it, although my body may disagree with that statement today. It won't be the last journey, that's for sure. We'll be in Indianapolis over Spring Break to cover the Big Ten tournament, and, should the Lions reach their first NCAA tournament in eight years, we'll hope to be on the run again to keep you covered.

-Fortuna