(02-20-2021 11:29 AM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  

(02-09-2021 05:49 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I'm old enough to remember when Penn State men's hoops (this was in the 1970s and 1980s) were truly an afterthought to football. The program was not even remotely known on a national level and rarely enjoyed much more than modest success. No doubt, Penn State inevitably and eventually was bound for the Big Ten — whether it had done a stay in an all-sports Northeast league or not.

Another consideration is that at the time back in in the 80's the two dominant recruiting schools in the Midwest were outside of the B1G; Notre Dame and Penn State.

That is who the B1G thought they needed to become the #1 football conference and they were even willing to take in Penn State by itself as an 11th while giving ND a few more years to come on board.

Penn State in the 80's was on a mission to have one of the largest stadiums in college football. They had outgrown Pitt, Syracuse and WVU. In the 60's they were on the same level but the 70's changed everything.

Penn State is kind of like Texas A&M. They only had 48,000 seats as late as 1976. They are just too big to be in an entry level major conference anymore. XII isn't really entry level but the SWC was and the BE definitely was taking in newbies like Virginia Tech and Rutgers.