Cagers pull out win in odd contest

By RYAN JONES
Collegian Sports Writer

It was a game of oddities.

It was a game in which the Nittany Lion basketball team, traditionally inconsistent from the perimeter, made 11-of-22 three-point attempts; a game in which a reserve swingman spent much of his time running the point; and a game in which a trio of all-Big Ten candidates combined for 12 first-half points.

It was also a game neither Penn State nor Wisconsin could afford to lose. And maybe oddest of all, it was a game in which the Lions played like they had to when it counted, using clutch treys and free throws to earn a 74-67 win over the Badgers Saturday in Rec Hall.

"That's as good a win as we've had in a long time," Lion Coach Bruce Parkhill said of the game that guaranteed his program its first winning season since 1991-92. "I really thought the guys came out and played tough, and then when Wisconsin made the run toward the end of the game, the guys stayed tough and pulled it out of the fire."

Penn State (14-8, 6-7 Big Ten) built an 11-point second-half lead before the Badgers (12-9, 6-6) cut the lead to one, 58-57, on Andy Kilbride's three pointer with 3:41 left to play. The deficit was shaved to a point again at the 2:57 mark, when Rashard Griffith's layup made it 60-59.

But the Lions countered Wisconsin's comeback by playing a nearly flawless final five minutes, hitting 10 consecutive free throws and getting a pair of enormous treys from freshman Pete Lisicky to clinch the contest.

The exclamation point was added by senior swingman Greg Bartram, whose breakaway dunk and ensuing arm-pumping celebration in the final seconds showed just how big a win it was.

"We knew how much we needed to get back on the winning track," Bartram said of the victory that ended the Lions' three-game skid and kept their slim NCAA tournament hopes alive. "This was a really big game for us, and we knew that it was a real important game. We've played with emotion the past two days in practice, and it just carried over into today."

Bartram, a swingman-turned-point guard in the wake of the Lions' backcourt woes, added nine points and three assists to a balanced attack. Penn State was led, as usual, by senior center John Amaechi, who contributed 15 points and 10 boards, while guards Lisicky and Dan Earl each scored 12. Forward Rahsaan Carlton had 11.

Although it was their heady play down the stretch that earned the victory, the Lions employed an equally important run that carried over the half. After a sloppy opening in which neither team reached double-digit scoring for the first 12 minutes, the half picked up as the Badgers built a 25-21 lead with 2:28 left.

That four-point edge made a 180-degree turn, starting with Carlton's eight-foot runner at the 1:33 mark. Carlton hit a straight-away three nearly a minute later to give the Lions a one-point lead, which looked like it would hold until the half.

It did, until Kilbride fouled Lisicky on a three-point attempt with no time left. The rookie made the trio of freebies, and the Lions jogged into the locker room with a four-point lead of their own.

"If we could get those three points back, the game may be different," Badger Coach Stan Van Gundy said. "That's as big a factor as any psychological thing."

The psyhological effect was apparent when the teams took the floor for the second half. Carlton opened the scoring with another trey to push the lead to seven, Amaechi added a short hook to make it nine and Van Gundy called timeout. The Badgers, with only a turnover to show for the first 1:30 of the second half, would never make up the deficit.

"We just didn't come out with a high energy level in the second half," Van Gundy lamented. "It wasn't even so much that they scored the two hoops, you could just see out on the floor that we didn't have a real high energy level."