Agreed, for the most part, the BigTen is fairly well known for having above average academic universities.
With respect to putting out quality teams year in year out....I think that has to do w/ the fact that PSU was not aligned w/ the Big Ten until the early 90's. Penn State was and for the most part still is, only known as a football school (you can probably throw wrestling and Volleyball from an athletic standpoint) because we played all the big schools as an Independent prior to joining the BigTen. W/o this conference affiliation, baseball and basketball are not nearly as recognized. It'll be tough to gain that reputation as an elite baseball/basketball school especially considering we have only won 1 Big-Ten championship in baseball and only advanced to the tourney once since joining the bigten. Basketball has had moments of 'brilliance', but very similiar to baseball, no consistency. With all the new facilities, including the Jordan Center and The Med, I think (hope) we'll eventually get there, but you can't expect it to happen overnight.
I know the Med has a lot of seats, but come on 1000+ people at the opener....that's it?? For those of you that have been to watch a game at a powerhouse (ie. Texas, Texas A&M, Miami, Georgia Tech, etc...), they'd fill up the Med, especially for the opener...EASY. Don't tell me about the weather, no excuse! We need someone working their a$$ off to market the Med and the baseball team. You want to put a winner out there....you need to establish an atmosphere that's contagious to winning as well as a place that top notch highschool kids would want to be a part of when they witness this atmosphere!....ie...get people out the game!!
