Semester break no gift for cagers

After dropping four straight games, the Penn State men's basketball team was searching for someone to step up and propel it to victory in its game Saturday against Minnesota.

The Nittany Lions had to look no farther than Calvin Booth.

The junior center scored 23 points, pulled down eight rebounds and had four blocks for Penn State (8-5 overall, 1-2 Big Ten) in its 75-68 victory over the Golden Gophers (7-7, 0-3).

This came only three days after Booth went 1 for 10 against No. 8 Purdue (14-3, 2-1) in a 77-55 loss. The Lions quickly showed they had lost no confidence in Booth when Lion guard Pete Lisicky dished to him one minute and 48 seconds into the game for Penn State's first two points.

"It was important for us to go back to him," said Penn State coach Jerry Dunn. "He played like a Big Ten player."

Booth was the only one who looked like he came to play for the Nittany Lions in the first half. He was 6 for 8 and scored 13 points, but saw his team behind 40-30 at halftime.

This was the fifth game in a row where Penn State had trailed at the break. The last four times the Lions didn't have enough to come back from the deficit, though.

In the second half, the Gophers took their largest lead of the game, 47-34, on a 3-pointer from guard Eric Harris, who led Minnesota with 20 points. The Lions then began to chip away the Gophers' lead.

Booth pulled the team within seven when he made a foul shot to convert a 3-point play.

Minnesota, which was a Final Four team last season, hasn't had much luck this year. The Gophers' leading scorer, Sam Jacobson, injured his back last Sunday and didn't make the trip to State College. The Gophers suffered another loss early in the second half when forward Quincy Lewis, who scored 10 points in the first half, left the game with a wrist injury. Without these two, Minnesota was hard pressed for offense.

"I thought we did a tremendous job carrying out the game plan," said Gopher coach Clem Haskins. "We played as well as we could possibly play. The credit goes to Penn State."

After a Lisicky 3-pointer pulled the team within five points, Joe Crispin made three foul shots to make the score 54-52 with 9:00 left. Crispin set a new school record going 14 for 14 from the line and tied the Big Ten free throw percentage record.

"I love it," said the freshman point guard of shooting foul shots. "It's more points. When you go to the free throw line a couple of times you get into a groove."

Crispin was definitely in that groove Saturday. With Penn State down 61-58, Crispin sunk a 3-pointer with 3:28 left, but Dunn had called a timeout before he shot and it didn't count.

"I was hoping the ref would ignore him," Crispin said.

Dunn went back to Crispin after the timeout and the freshman was fouled on a trey attempt. Crispin came through again sinking three free throws to knot the score at 61.

Freshman Kyle Sanden hit a jumper to put the Gophers up two. The 6-foot-11 center scored 16 in the game.

Lisicky gave the Lions their first lead since the opening minutes when he buried a 3-pointer with 2:24 left in the game. The senior guard finished with 15 points and moved over the 1,300 point mark for his career.

From there, the Lions converted 11 of 12 free throws and picked up their first conference victory.

"I knew deep down that this team was capable of doing what we did today," Lisicky said. "We grew up a little bit today."

Over the break

The Nittany Lions must be glad to see classes resuming. Semester break was rough on Penn State.

The Lions went in undefeated but came out with five losses, two in the Big Ten.

Virginia Military Institute was the first team to victimize the Lions. The Keydets knocked off Penn State 71-68 on Dec. 14. Jason Bell scorched the Lions with 28 points, 16 in the second half. Booth led Penn State with 14 points and 10 rebounds.

The Lions recovered the following Saturday against Bucknell. Penn State trailed the Bison 35-27 at halftime, but scored 64 points in the second half to win 91-75. Lisicky led Lion scorers with 21 points.

Penn State next traveled to El Paso, Texas, for the Sun Bowl Tournament. The Lions dropped their first game to Texas-El Paso, 79-60. Penn State shot 37 percent from the floor and point guard Crispin was up the entire night before with food poisoning. Lisicky led Penn State with 17 points.

The following night, a buzzer-beating 3-pointer sunk Penn State. Mississippi State won 58-57 when Detrick White hit a shot from just over midcourt. Lisicky again led the Lions with 20 points and was named to the all-tournament team.

In the conference opener at Michigan (13-4, 3-1 Big Ten) on Jan. 3, Penn State got itself into a hole early and could not dig itself out. The Lions trailed 35-9 with 5:00 left in the first half. Penn State mounted a comeback in the second half cutting the Wolverines' lead down to nine points.

But the Lions could not overcome the first-half deficit and lost 92-75. Greg Grays led Penn State with 18 points. Robert Traylor had 27 points and 10 rebounds for the Wolverines.

Penn State dropped to 0-2 in the conference when Purdue beat the Lions 77-55 last Wednesday night. The Lions again found themselves trailing by double digits in the first half when Purdue jumped out to a 38-20 score by halftime. The full-court press foiled Penn State this time, forcing the Lions to make 21 turnovers, seven from Crispin.

Grays and Gyasi Cline-Heard led Penn State with 12 points each.