In an exciting event for me as an aspiring journalist, the New York Times used some quotes from my preview of tonight's Penn-Temple matchup in a post about the game on their college sports blog. Given the apparent popularity of some of the comments these guys made, I figured I'd share some other worthwhile items from my interviews that weren't in the story. Also after the jump, an update on two of Penn's recruits.

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Arguably one reason why Penn hesitated to fire Glen Miller is that his contract runs through the end of the 2010-11 season. Athletic Director Steve Bilsky would not comment on the financial implications of Miller's departing, saying in his media teleconference:

As you can imagine, I’m not going to get into that other than that I care about Glen, I want him to be successful going forward. In personnel maters, I really just can’t say much about that.

Many readers of this blog, too, have wondered about the bottom-line impacts of Miller and his potential succesors. (After all, assuming Miller is paid the remainder of his contract, as is customary, then Penn will be paying two head coaches next season.) So how big a deal is it?

We do not know the terms of the five-year contract that Miller signed in 2006, since that information is not public. But we can guess.

Here are some facts:

• In 2008-09, the average salary of a head coach of a Penn men's team was $82,025. Obviously, the basketball coach will be one of the highest-paid coaches on campus.
• In 2008-09, the men's basketball team had operating expenses of $190,889 and total expenses of $914,602.  (Revenues were $928,509, by the way, meaning that the program was profitable).
• Fran Dunphy was reportedly paid roughly $300,000 per season when he left Penn. Miller almost definitely made less than Dunphy, who spent 17 years with the Quakers.

So, ballparking it, that leaves us around $100,000 - $225,000.

That's no petty sum, accounting for 10-25% of men's hoops expenses and allowing for a comfortable lifestyle. But it's also a small price to pay for getting the program back on track sooner.

Two games down for M. Hoops, and two losses to BCS teams. But as my colleagues Neil Fanaroff and Ari Seifter asked, how much can we learn from these two defeats about the 2009-10 men's basketball team? Neil believes, not much, since this is way to soon to make snap judgments about the team. Ari believes we can make broader statements about the team's ability to compete with top-flight teams.

Not to cop out, but they're both right.

Clearly this Penn team, especially this early in the season, isn't suited to compete with a top 5 team like Villanova. And there's a good chance the Quakers' trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium will result in an equally lopsided loss to Duke.  But that doesn't mean that Penn will be irrelevant against better competition forever.  Ivy teams in general aren't irrelevant nationally. Cornell beat Alabama this weekend. Harvard beat Holy Cross and Williams and Mary, two better mid-majors. Even Brown -- which was last in the Ivies last year -- was semi-competitive agains Virginia Tech. Penn has awhile to go before they can be as successful as Cornell is right now, but that doesn't mean they'll go winless in the Big 5 from now until they quit out of desperation.

On the other hand, Neil's right that losing to Penn State and Villanova tells us very little about Penn's Ivy chances. The fact of the matter is this season will be a success or failure depending on Penn's Ivy play. If Penn goes 4-10 in non-conference play like it did last year, people will surely be up in arms, calling for Glen Miller's head. But then if the team were to somehow go 10-4 in League play, perhaps beat Cornell at the Palestra, go at least 1-1 versus Princeton and not lose to Dartmouth -- twice. I'm not saying they necessarily would do that. And Tyler Bernardini's injury could affect them significantly. But frankly it's too early to tell if they can compete with teams more equal to their caliber.

I realize some of you already posted your thoughts on Ari's initial column. But feel free to do so again here on The Buzz, especially your thoughts on this year's team.

Also, read after the jump for two more Hoops items

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Friday marked the beginning of college basketball season as teams were allowed to start officially practicing. Many schools celebrate the start of the year with Midnight Madness. Thought up by former Maryland coach Lefty Driessell in the early 1970s, the tradition has developed into a major event at many Division I schools.

Midnight Madness is basically a glorified pep rally to kick off the season in which the team is introduced and sometimes scrimmages or practices, fans compete in contests and the coaches make spectacular entrances. Well maybe that last one only applies to Maryland coach Gary Williams, who has exploded out of a box (or something like that) and entered the Terrapins' stadium on a motorcycle. In addition many schools use the event as a recruiting tool, with an estimated 160 blue chip recruits attending a Midnight Madness event in 2007.

But one team that doesn't do a Midnight Madness event is Penn. (Interestingly, no City Six team had events yesterday, though La Salle and Saint Joseph's have similar events planned for next week.)

Former coach Fran Dunphy liked the event, and the last one took place in 2004 (in 2005, Dunphy's final season, the night coincided with Fall Break, like it does this year, so the event didn't happen.) However, since Glen Miller has been here the Athletic Department hasn't organized an official Midnight Madness.

Of course, instead Penn has the Line. This year's Line certainly was closer to a Midnight Madness format than say 2007, as Miller and several players stayed quite late into the night. Yet the Line is restricted to current students who are interested in spending an entire night in the Palestra in order to get season tickets. But what about alumni? What about students who don't want to spend an entire night in the Palestra? What about Penn fans who don't want to buy a full set of season tickets? Furthermore, since the Line was before the official Midnight Madness start date, no practicing could legally happen.

Meanwhile, while Penn Athletics did acknowledge the start of practice today, the opening session was closed to the public, as well as the media. (In fact Miller doesn't open practices to the media until a couple of weeks into the season.)

So do you think Penn would be better suited to have a Midnight Madness event, complete with players practicing? Perhaps the Athletics Department can create an event in conjunction with the Line. Under this system, a practice open to the general public could happen at midnight, followed by students spending the rest of the night in the Palestra to get the tickets.

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

We all knew that Fran Dunphy and his Temple Owls would be going to the Big Dance after beating St. Joe's in the A-10 championship on Saturday, but the Hawks' fate was uncertain. After yesterday's loss, Phil Martelli said, "I've told everybody, if you believe in a greater power than us, pray your (butt) off. Right now, I have to believe in the power of prayer."

Maybe it has something to do with Easter weekend approaching, but not only were Martelli's prayers answered -- so too were those of Holy War rival Villanova. Both Big 5 squads were very much on the bubble heading into today, and both found their way into the tournament bracket.

While Villanova snagged a 12 seed, St. Joe's wound up with an 11 seed, which is a bit suspect. Why? Because Temple, the A-10 champion, got stuck with a 12 seed. The two teams split the regular season series, but the Owls beat the Hawks in the A-10 championship game, when it counted most. It seems pretty unfair that the Hawks would wind up with the better seed. But hey, it's just one seed, and when has the tournament selection committee ever been perfectly accurate or fair?

And to top it all off, Notre Dame won more games this season than it ever has before, earning a 5 seed. The dozen or so of you non-Jews at Penn clearly need to go to church more often.

In any event, it is the first time since 1999 that three Big 5 teams have made the tournament. Now, in the one year that Penn finally fails to make the tourney, you have your pick of Cornell or three Big 5 teams to root for.

While Penn coach Glen Miller knows his team isn't the League's best in 2007-08, he certainly isn't backing down.

Well, his mouth isn't, anyway.

After the 74-58 loss at Columbia, Miller had this to say for his opponents reaping the benfits of a weaker Penn squad.

"I would just say to our opponents in the Ivy League: Enjoy it; it won't last long."

For anyone who followed Penn under Fran Dunphy, you're probably as shocked as I am to hear a Penn coach talking in this manner. Dunphy couldn't stop talking about how much respect he had for the other side, calling his adversaries a "very good basketball team" no matter what its record was. Pigs will fly before Dunphy says something like this.

Dunphy is politically-correct, Miller is entertaining, but Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli is the perfect combination of the two.

Martelli praised Penn for its rebounding after the 40-point loss and called Villanova still the premier program in Philadelphia after crushing them in the Holy War. But he could only think of criticism about No. 13 Xavier after the near-upset against the Musketeers.

"Is there anybody here from the Xavier administration?" Martelli said, after dramatically removing his glasses. "Do you know when graduation is? That goddamn [Stanley] Burrell, every goddamn game, makes a shot against us. He was averaging 7.5 points coming into the game, in seven or eight league games. He doesn't look like the same player, playing great defense. Dagger.

"I want to be here to make sure that son of a bitch gets out of here to be honest with you."

Martelli is the man. I've never seen a joke tirade like this before.

Everybody's favorite blogger looks at the coaching philosophy of Glen Miller versus Fran Dunphy.