Penn State's Shep Garner and the Flavor Flav connection

Twice this season, Penn State point guard Shep Garner, a freshman out of Roman Catholic, has gone viral in the college hoops world - and really neither time it was because of his own actions. Garner was just playing ball.

The first time, the Nittany Lions were at home against Virginia Tech in December.

"I think there was a timeout before we came out," Garner remembers. "I think everyone lost focus."

He meant everyone but him. The video is the kind you end up watching over and over. Garner's teammate Payton Banks shot the front end of a one-and-one and missed. Garner was the only Nittany Lion up along the side of the free-throw line. The ball caromed off the back of the rim pretty much straight to Garner. He caught it, dribbled once, and put it in the basket.

"I thought I was wrong at first," Garner said.

You could see that, because Garner then returned to his position along the foul line. Meanwhile, none of the four Virginia Tech players along the foul lane had reacted. The two inside guys kept their hands on their hips. Banks was ready to shoot again, and a teammate slapped his hand, thinking the same thing. They didn't know it was a one-and-one. Even worse: The referee along the baseline seemed to have forgotten, too.

But the ref in front of Virginia Tech's bench had it right. He immediately motioned that Garner's two points counted and started running downcourt.

By that night, practically everyone Garner knew, he said, had seen the play.

"After the game, I saw that people were tweeting about it," Garner said. "It ended up on SportsCenter. That was the first time I saw myself on SportsCenter. A week later, people were still tweeting, still talking about it. I was like, 'This is crazy.' "

You can still see the video. Just Google Shep Garner and foul shot . . . except if you Google Shep Garner and only get to the "F," then foul shot won't be the first thing that comes up.

That would be Shep Garner and Flavor Flav.

Last month, the former member of Public Enemy - best known these days as a reality-show icon (The Surreal Life, Flavor of Love) - showed up in State College, specifically for a Penn State basketball game.

Even Nittany Lions football coach James Franklin had to tweet that out, a photo of the coach with Flav wearing his trademark clock around his neck. Franklin added his variation of Flavor Flav's catchphrase, "Yeeeaaaaahhhh Boyyy!" Franklin's tweet has been retweeted 1,257 times.

Someone immediately posted on Twitter, wondering what the heck @FlavorFlav was doing at a Penn State-Purdue basketball game.

And @FlavorFlav immediately tweeted back, "my cousin shep garner #33 is point guard for Penn St. I came to see him play so my choice is verry wise."

And the Twitterverse erupted again.

"My grandmother on my mom's side and his mother are sisters," Garner explained. "We see him about 20 times a year. He comes to my house. Him and my mom are like really close."

So Flavor Flav off camera? "He's the exact same person off the television," Garner said. "Very funny, very energetic. There's not a dull moment with him at all."

Garner went to Roman, but he's from Chester. He figures he has known Penn State coach Patrick Chambers since Garner was 10 or 11, back when Chambers was trying to recruit Tyreke Evans to Villanova.

"I was like a little brother to the Evans family; I was always around," Garner said. (Evans ultimately went to Memphis before moving on to the NBA. Chambers became Boston University's head coach before going to Penn State).

So Garner, the son of a former Chester High star, is used to unlikely connections. They don't faze him. Even Penn State star senior D.J. Newbill, from Strawberry Mansion High, and Garner go way, way back, although that's more of a standard Philly hoops connection.

"I was in seventh grade; he was in 12th," Garner said. "There were always open runs at Penn Wood High School. We would always go. He was so much older."

Newbill's path to Penn State was more indirect, since he spent a year at Southern Mississippi. Now they share a backcourt in the Big Ten. Garner is third on the team in scoring at 9.2 points a game.

That leads us to Saturday's viral Penn State basketball moment. This time, it wasn't Garner front and center. It was teammate Jordan Dickerson and Chambers, his coach. Game video showed that Dickerson was pulled down near the end of the Maryland game. The foul somehow was charged to Dickerson. The Nittany Lions lost a close one, 76-73.

"The worst play I've ever seen in my life," Chambers said at the postgame news conference, making it clear that he didn't think Penn State was getting respect from Big Ten officials. "It's a joke the way we're officiated."

On the play in question, Garner was maybe 10 feet away. He had just passed the ball. You can see him in the middle of the video that's all over the place now, including at the Big Ten offices. There's No. 33 - just ask Flavor Flav.