Northwestern! Penn State!

Already barely palatable Big Ten basketball takes a big ol' hit from the ugly stick as the Wildcats head to Happy Valley and a pair of teams without their best players square off. As we outlined earlier - and as sad as it is - this is actually sort of an important game for Northwestern and their chances of making the NCAA Tournament.Win, and we learn a lot about Northwestern's ability to win games in the Big Ten.

Plus, this game falls under the "hey, when Northwestern and Penn State play it has to be on some various ESPN channel to fulfill their contractual requirements" contractual requirement, so we all get to watch it on ESPNU! Exciting!

Comment along here and stuff for what should be a relatively competitive game. You know, hopefully. Of course, Northwestern could lose by a lot and I'd have to write about a team that's sorta hopeless for the rest of the year, but, yeah.Nor