Curse of Sharif Chambliss rolls on

I have a confession: Despite picking Wisconsin to win on this blog, I picked Penn State on ESPN's Beat the Streak, effectively killing all chances of the Nittany Lions winning today.

That's how bad I am at ESPN's Beat the Streak. It really doesn't even make sense. I'm better at picking spreads than I am at picking their games straight up. I'm so bad at it that I now I have the power to control the outcomes of games based on my pick. The team I pick to win is guaranteed to lose.

Sorry Penn State.

(The sad thing is that I really did pick Penn State five minutes before tipoff just to jinx them.)

Anyway, Ed DeChellis is now 0-10 against Wisconsin so start printing your "Bo Owns Eddie" T-shirts.

It's actually not DeChellis' fault. It's the Curse of Sharif Chambliss. The last time Penn State beat Wisconsin was Feb. 19, 2003 when Chambliss was busy leading Penn State in scoring (over 14 points per game). After that season, Chambliss transferred to Wisconsin and the Lions haven't beaten the Badgers since.

In all seriousness, this was a huge win for Wisconsin. Over the last week or so, I've written that a 6-3 second half finish is very realistic. That included a loss at Penn State, which means that a 7-2 second half record is now plausable (meaning UW will go 5-2 the rest of the way). That would be good enough for a 10-8 conference record, likely putting Wisconsin in the NCAA Tournament for the 11th consecutive season.

I don't think Penn State and Wisconsin can BOTH make the tournament and I had a suspicion today that the loser of this game would really regret it a month from now. We'll see if that becomes the case.