Penn State played Illinois yesterday in the Bryce Jordan Center. The Illini were ranked 16th in the nation and the Nittany Lions were looking to knock off their second straight top-25 opponent. The crowd was really into the game, despite being rather small (around 8,000). In the end Penn State took home the victory 57-55. The fans rushed the court, not sure how I feel about that, but whatever. Shooting wasn’t great, but I did get the above shot of Andrew Jones, which I’m really happy with.

I’ve still got a lot of basketball ahead of me, so we’ll see what we end up with.

It was supposed to be a night Penn State fans would remember forever. In what was being called “The Biggest Non-Conference Game In BJC History” the Nittany Lions decided not to show up. While the first 6 minutes looked like everything was going to go the way of the home team, poor shooting ultimately doomed the Nittany Lions. The Terps destroyed the Nittany Lions, 62-39, with the Lions shooting just 11% from behind the arc.

As bad as the team shot, I actually did pretty well. I mused on Facebook and Twitter that I had more good shots than the team did. As always, these are below.

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And, in what’s becoming a regular feature, here’s an additional photo that I thought was pretty amusing.

I photographed my first basketball game today. Penn State versus Furman University in the Bryce Jordan Center on campus. I was a little apprehensive about shooting the game, as I had never shot basketball before, but I ran into my friend Becky who showed me the ropes, so to speak. The game was pretty fun, Penn State won handily, 70-49. Unfortunately, the crowd was lacking, only 5,181 fans in attendance, but those who were there were enthusiastic. Hopefully we’ll see a bigger crowd on Wednesday, when Maryland rolls into town as part of the ACC-Big Ten challenge. The game will be on ESPN2, so that’ll be neat to be working a game being televised nationally.

I’ve got a season pass to shoot basketball, so there will probably be a bunch more posts forthcoming. I might even try to get a Big Ten Tournament pass, that would be awesome.

Here’s the slideshow.

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Special note: I may or may not have gotten hit in the face with a basketball. Even better I got it on film. A special treat for the people who read the whole post.

Last Saturday marked the start of Thanksgiving break for Penn State. It also coincided with the penultimate football game of the 2010 regular season. Penn State faced off against the Hoosiers of Indiana, in Landover, Maryland. The game was played at FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins. The game was originally supposed to be a home game for Indiana, but they moved the game to DC for a massive payoff (somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million). However, this resulted in the game being significantly closer to most Penn State fans, and the Nittany Lion faithful turned out in force. My view from the field had me conclude that about 3/4 of the crowd were supporting the Blue and White.

The Lions showed up too, putting up almost 500 yards of offense and handing the Hoosiers a 41-24 defeat. This was my first real football game shooting from the sidelines, I shot the Blue-White game last spring, and I had a ton of fun. I ran into a few familiar faces on and off the field. All in all it was a great way to start off the Thanksgiving holiday.

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