Monroe Brown sank two free throws with just under 14 minutes left in regulation last night to give the men's basketball team a 56-45 lead. For Brown, it would be the final two of a career-high 22 points. For the Scarlet Knights, it was time to wield their swords.

For all intents and purposes, the game belonged to Rutgers from that point on, as the hosts moved into third place in the Atlantic 10 with an 87-83 overtime victory last night in Piscataway, N.J. Rutgers raised its record to 8-10, 6-3 in the conference, while Penn State fell to 11-8 and 7-4. By virtue of head-to-head competition, the Scarlet Knights bumped the Lions into fourth in A-10 play

Brown and Tom Hovasse led the Lions with 22 points each, while all five Rutgers starters posted double figures. Tom Savage and Emory Ward paced the home team with 21 and 20 points, respectively.

A Bruce Blake free throw with 12:37 left kept the Lions ahead by 10, at 57-47. But a 12-3 Rutgers spurt made it a one-point game with less than eight minutes to go.

"Our offense kind of sputtered for a while," Coach Bruce Parkhill said on his post-game radio show, "and Rutgers got too many shots in the paint. Those two things were really costly for us."

With Rutgers trailing 64-61, Anthony Ducket started a 10-4 run to give the Knights a 69-68 lead with 2:50 to play. Rutgers built the lead up to three, 73-30 with 41 seconds left.

The Lions put the ball in the hands of Hovasse, who tied the game with a 3-pointer from the top of the key. Neither team could muster any offense the rest of regulation, so Penn State was forced into its second overtime game of the season.

Overtime games have not been kind to the Lions: Southern Illinois beat Penn State in OT at the Cowboy Shootout with a half-court basket at the buzzer. But the way they were going, the Scarlet Knights did not need luck to win.

"They just made a couple tough shots and started a little run," Hovasse said. "The crowd really got into it."

As 4,172 fans watched, the Knights went on a quick 5-2 run to pull ahead, 82-78, with 1:35 left. The Lions never got closer than three as Brown, Blake (nine points) and Hovasse all fouled out in a 30-second span with less than a minute to play.

Rutgers achieved its second-half comeback by successfully shutting down both Penn State's inside game and Monroe Brown on the perimeter. The inside game was not much of a factor throughout the game, as the outside shots were falling, but Brown's 18 firsthalf points put the Lions in a position to blow out their hosts.

"They pushed out on him (in the second half) and made it tougher for him to get his shots," Parkhill said. "We also didn't get the ball inside nearly as much as we had to. A lot of the credit for that goes to Rutgers' defense."

Brown's point totals have been rising along with his playing time, while fellow freshman starter Freddie Barnes works at the point position. Barnes added a new facet to his game in the Louis Brown Athletic Center. As usual, he led the team in assists with six, but he also led the team in rebounds with seven. While that may be fine for Barnes, it is more evidence of the struggling play of the Lions' frontcourt last night.

The Scarlet Knights are far from the team they were last year, when they finished last in the A-10 with a 3-15 record (overall they were 7-22) under Craig Littlepage. Now, under Bob Wenzel, Rutgers is in a position to finish in the A-10's first division for the first time since 1985.