How much does it suck when the job that pays your rent gets in the way of your blogging....sigh.

9,000 plus were at the Maggie Dixon Classic to watch RU beat Army (59-38) and Penn State not get blown out by UConn (77-63).

"I thought that we did some good things defensively today," said head coach Dave Magarity. "It's just tough for us to match-up with a team like Rutgers. I thought Alex (McGuire) had a solid afternoon. We just have take advantage of when we're open and shoot the ball. Rutgers is just a tremendous team with great size and really talented guards. We'll take away a lot of learning points from this game."

The way Rutgers' Kia Vaughn dominated at the outset it's kind of odd to see she only ended up with 12 (season high?!) points. Epiphanny Prince was in fine form, scoring 25pts, and Coach Stringer had some kind words for Brittany Ray's performance:

We made an attempt to move Brittany (Ray) which is something I was really pleased with and she made me very calm. Moving her into the point position because as you can see were basically going to have a point (guard) by committee rather than to have any of the natural point guards who are freshmen. We don’t seem to move the ball as well but I was pleased with the way we moved it today.”

Penn State's Tyra Grant (26 pts) and the rest of her teammates came to play. Fearless and stubborn, the game never got away from them, but some key steals and conversions by Maya Moore and a monster game by Tina Charles (29 pts, 18 rebounds, 5 blocks) sealed the Nittany Lions' fate.

“Being that it was the No. 1 team in the nation, we hung with them all the way till the final buzzer went off,” Grant said. “Our whole schedule we played tough teams, ranked teams, we’ve always come close to beating them. When we hit the Big Ten Conference, hopefully these type of games will get us over the hump.”

A couple of words about Ms. Charles' blocks. While there's nothing quite as viscerally satisfying as swatting a ball into the stands with a scream, the reality is your opponent still has possession. Charles seems to take a page out of the "old school" play book that says you block the ball in a controlled manner so your team can snag it. I like that.

The crowd was treated to a fine half time show by the West Point drill team, a simple and a classy and heartfelt tribute to Coach Dixon between the double-header. Best news? The future seems bright for the Classic. Here's what Jamie Dixon [Maggie's brother] said about the future of the event"

"My goal is to fill Madison Square Garden, obviously we are already playing on national TV," Dixon said. "I think it has already probably become the premier event in the country. You have Tennessee and Rutgers are going to play next year, Baylor wants to be in it. Geno wants to be in it every year if he can. North Carolina wants to be in it but at the same time we want to keep Army involved in it so there are challenges.

I think the basketball even has taken care of itself. You have the Garden, you have national TV, our bigger goal now is to promote awareness of sudden cardiac arrest (which claimed the life of Maggie Dixon at the age of 28 in 2006, shortly after she coached Army into the 2006 NCAA tournament) and have some people who maybe haven't given it a thought that they can do some things to prevent it. Maybe we can save a few lives, especially young people because young athletes are more likely to suffer from sudden cardiac arrest. Our goal is to get better health, better diets, more education."