Happy About Things In Happy Valley?

I’m in a bit of a conundrum that probably happens to most sports fans. I want my team to fire its coach, but suddenly they’ve started winning. Now, I don’t know whether to root for my team and suck it up and deal with a crappy coach or be disappointed that my team is winning. Since I’m an Eagles fan, one might assume I’m whining about Andy Reid, but the Eagles just made the NFC Championship and I’m well aware that no one wants to hear a fan complain about a team that’s been in the conference title game five of the past eight years. Instead, I intend to whine about Penn State basketball. That’s right. Penn State actually has a basketball program. Who knew?
Penn State made the NCAA tournament twice under former coach (and current John Belein lackey) Jerry Dunn, during his first season in 1996 and again in 2001. In 2001, my alma mater (during my freshman year) improbably beat UNC in the second round of the NCAA tournament and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen where they promptly got spanked by the 11th seeded Temple Owls. Rioting ensued. No, seriously. There were riots. I was there.
In his 8 years at Penn State, Dunn went 117-121, which is … not so good. Dunn was deservedly fired after consecutive 7-21 seasons. Then Penn State did something inconceivable. They hired Ed DeChellis.
In 8 years, Dunn had only three losing seasons, making the NIT three times. His teams also routinely had players that edged onto the All-Big Ten team, such as Dan Earl, Jarrett Stephens, Calvin Booth, and John (I will not make a joke here) Amaechi. Remarkably since Dunn got canned, I’ve missed this era.
Many high profile coaches expressed interest in the Penn State job, among them Tim Floyd, Steve Lavin, and Steve Wojociechowski. Instead, Penn State hired DeChellis, a man who in seven seasons guided East Tennessee State to one NCAA tournament appearance and a 105-93 record. Woohoo! DeChellis!
Instead of upgrading their coaching staff, Penn State went safe. They hired a sub-mediocre coach from a nothing program who had middling-at-best success. DeChellis, though, is an alum. No matter how good (or bad or mediocre or whatever) Penn State gets under him, DeChellis will never leave. Coaching in Happy Valley is Ed DeChellis’ dream job. Ugh.
We are now in year six of the grand DeChellis experiment. Going into this year, it had worked out pretty much exactly as I had predicted. Through five years, Penn State was 56-91 under DeChellis. Twice they had won 15 games, with DeChellis’ high water mark being a 15-15 record in 2006, which ended with a first-round NIT loss to Rutgers.
So I was kind of optimistic going into this season. Did I think this was the year Big Ed would turn it all around? Hell no. I thought finally we’d toss this numbskull aside and attempt to return to the relative glory of the mediocre Dunn years. Instead, it’s late January and Penn State is 15-5 overall and currently tied for fourth in the Big Ten with a winning conference record. Holy crap.
If Penn State beats Iowa at home tonight, they will have set a single season win record under DeChellis and it’s January 24. According to stats guru Ken Pomeroy, Penn State is going to go 19-12 and 8-10 in the Big Ten this season. Since we aren’t Duke or UCLA, this is actually cause for joy. 19-12???? We might play in the postseason! We might actually win a Big Ten tournament game!
So now here I sit, killing time until the Penn State game starts (hooray for the Big Ten Network, home of none other than Gus Johnson), and it’s slowly dawning on me that Ed DeChellis is not going to get fired this year. Should I be excited? Is Eddie turning this program around? Should I be depressed? Is this only going to lead to the inevitable eight-win season next year?
I have no idea how to feel about this. I love my alma mater and I’m excited every time they win, but I just can’t shake the feeling that in a year or two I’m going to regret that this season ever happened.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I’d give this post a Dave Revsine.