Blue White Illustrated

was all over, he savored the moment. ���It was a great feeling. Our team deserved it. It was a great win and wonderful for it to be our first win,��� he said. ���I was just very proud of them. We had practiced hard in the days before, and it just showed during the games. I was so proud of D.J. and Jermaine [Marshall] and those guys stepping up. They deserved it.��� Marshall hit a career-best six 3-pointers and led the Nittany Lions with 25 points, while Newbill added 17 points for his 24th double-digit scoring effort of the season. The Nittany Lions also got 15 points and 12 rebounds from sophomore forward Ross Travis. Of course, the win wasn���t assured until the final moments. For much of the game, the Nittany Lions seemed headed for yet another defeat. They trailed by 15 points, 66-51, with 10 minutes, 39 seconds to play, and the Wolverines seemed to be well in control at that point. Slowly, though, Penn State chipped away at Michigan���s lead. A 3-pointer by Marshall cut it to six with 7:02 left, and by the time he dumped in a ringaround-the-rim layup with just over a minute to play, the Nittany Lions had the crucial three-point cushion they would need to finish off the Wolverines. Although Frazier was unable to contribute his typical 18 points and seven assists from a season ago, the victory looked a lot like the springboard he had been hoping to see ��� not only for the rest of this season, but also for the future of the program. ���I still feel like I���m still playing out there. I think the win was definitely for the team, for the program and for Coach,��� Frazier said. ���With everything that was going on around Penn State, just to get that signature win over a great quality team, top five in the country, was huge. It���s just huge for the way Penn State basketball is headed in the future. ���I knew how great this team is just by watching it in practice. Watching them in practice gives you that sense of how great we will be next year. It just all showed off in the game against Michigan.��� Win over Michigan illustrates power of positive thinking A ttempting to navigate an argument about ���good��� and ���bad��� guys in college athletics is a dangerous endeavor. In fact, it���s almost impossible. Save for a very few, the athletes and coaches I���ve come across in eight years of covering Penn State athletics have presented themselves as earnest, high-character individuals. The public has come to distrust high-profile athletes and coaches over the years, so any statement about a person���s character inevitably comes loaded with caveats. But in the time I���ve spent around Penn State men���s basketball coach Patrick Chambers, he���s proven himself to be one of the good guys. On Feb. 27, as thousands of Penn State students flooded the floor of the Bryce Jordan Center following an 84-78 upset of No. 4 Michigan, it was easy to think about the moment in just those terms. Finally, something good had happened to the good guys. The tireless work that players had put in and the positivity they and their coaches had exhibited had paid off. There���s some merit to that notion. When star senior point guard Tim Frazier was lost for the season with a ruptured Achilles tendon in November, the signs of what was to come were ever-present. This was a team full of hustling overachievers, not a team full of elite Big Ten players. Losing the one guy who had elevated everyone���s play to a competitive level seemed, frankly, unfair. But bad hands are dealt sometimes. Many of the events in our lives are entirely beyond our control. How we choose to deal with them is what defines us. In the immediate aftermath of Frazier���s injury, I asked Chambers if he had given himself permission to vent over his misfortune. Had he punched a locker? Slammed a door? Done something ��� anything ��� to relieve the frustration after seeing his second season crumple in a nearempty Puerto Rico gym? He said he had not. ���I���m the leader of this program. They���re going to follow me. They���re going to watch my attitude. They���re going to watch how I carry myself,��� he said. ���I���m not a loser. I���m not a guy who sulks. I���m not a guy who says I���m going to make a million excuses. That���s not me. It���s not going to happen, and it���s not going to happen to this team. We���re going to go out and compete. ���Don���t feel sorry for us. Nobody does. We���re going to go out and grind, and we���re going to play Penn State basketball.��� One hundred days, 16 losses, and six victories later ��� including the program���s first win against a topfour team since 2001 ��� Chambers no longer sounds like a man in denial. Instead, the prophet of positivi-

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