Cagers second half rally falls short

The Minnesota men's basketball team was the No. 4 team in the nation going into Wednesday's game with Penn State.

And Penn State, at 8-10 overall and 1-8 in the Big Ten -- substantially worse than the Golden Gopher's 19-2, 8-1 mark -- looked far inferior on the stat sheet.

As they say, though, no game is won or lost on paper, and the Nittany Lions nearly pulled out a miracle Wednesday, before succumbing to Minnesota, 85-70.

At halftime, the Gophers led 47-27, and everything was as it should've been. Former Big Ten player of the Week, Sam Jacobson, had 13 points with three 3-pointers. The Big Ten's leading candidate for MVP, Bobby Jackson had eight points. And Minnesota had 19 points from its bench players.

In the Penn State locker room, things weren't so rosy. The Lions suffered through 18 turnovers in the opening half, which lead to 25 Minnesota points. Penn State was also being out-rebounded, 14-9.

"We had some upper classmen and some freshmen who were not playing with confidence in the first half," Penn State coach Jerry Dunn said. "There's no excuse for that."

The one Lion playing with confidence was Jarrett Stephens, who had 11 points in the opening period.

The second half began smoothly for Penn State, as Lion center Calvin Booth opened with a nifty layup and followed that with a second bucket moments later.

For every Penn State score, Minnesota seemed to have an answer. As the half wore on, though, the Lions continued to chip-away at the Gopher lead.

With 12:30 to go in the game, Eric Harris sent Lion guard Pete Lisicky to the free-throw line. Lisicky converted both chances to cut the lead to nine.

Penn State cut the deficit even further with a Lisicky 3-pointer with 9:04 to go in the game. The basket pulled the Lions to within seven. It was as close as they would get.

Jackson responded with a 3-pointer of his own to push the lead back to 10.

Penn State could score just five more points in the game's final seven minutes and had some key turnovers which allowed Minnesota to pull away.

"We were just making bad decisions," Dunn said of his team's play down the stretch. "When you've got it down to seven or nine you can't have that against any team, especially the No. 4 team in the country."

Minnesota, on the opposite side, was able to take advantage and poured it on. The Gophers scored 12 points in that same span.

But the weak second period made an impression on Minnesota coach Clem Haskins.

"Wow, two different halves," he said. "I'm proud of our guys in the first half. All in all, I'm disgusted with our play in the second half."

In the loss, Stephens tied his career high of 22 points -- set Saturday against Purdue. He also grabbed six rebounds. Stephens, though, didn't score in the final eight minutes of the game.

Lisicky, after scoring just two points in the first half, scored 16 in the second period, with three 3-pointers.

For the Gophers, Jacobson led the way with 22 points. He had four 3-pointers.

In the end, the Lions walked from the court with thoughts of what could've been.

"If we had played the first half like we had played in the second half," Stephens said. "We would've beat this team."