Jackson finished with only seven points in 15 minutes, but his paint defense effectively shut out Princeton's back-door cut nearly the entire time he was on the floor. And his dunk off a Tyler Smith feed with less than four minutes remaining in the game brought the 6,008 at the center to their feet.

The Nittany Lions opened up a 5-0 lead early with a Joe Crispin driving lay-up and a pull-up 3-pointer seconds later, then never looked back.

"I thought the first half, the first 12-13 minutes, our concentration was good," Penn State coach Jerry Dunn said. "The back door is something that can really spread you out."

In the first 14 minutes, the Lions held the Tigers to seven points, five of those coming from back-door lay-ups by freshman Nate Walton. Princeton was held in single digits until Mason Rocca dropped the back end of two foul shots.

It would be the second of only three the Tigers would drop that half, and coupled with an 0-for-11 brickfest from outside the arc in those 20 minutes, it quickly became apparent where the game was heading.

"If they're not going to shoot really well, they're not going to have a good shot at winning. No offense to Princeton, but it was another level compared to what we were up against last week," Crispin said, comparing the Big Ten Tournament in Chicago to last night's game.

Crispin himself had a frustrating evening following his two early knockdowns, coughing up seven turnovers in 29 minutes. He drew his first technical foul of the year late in the game following a swarming half-court defensive scheme by Tigers backup forward Eugene Baah.

Complaining that Baah had stripped his arms and then head-butted him, Crispin said he told the referees to "give him a freaking break."

"I think it was that I made eye contact," he said. "I've got to watch that."

Crispin finished with three treys plus the aforementioned lay-up to bring his total to 11, well under his average of 18.7 points per game. Regardless, the Lions got balanced scoring from all five starters, with junior forward Titus Ivory and freshman shooting guard Jon Crispin adding nine apiece. Jon, the younger brother of Joe, nailed his first three shots from behind the arc before cooling down later in the second half.

"Not much was good out there," Princeton coach Bill Carmody said. "They sort of jumped on us before the outset. It was 5-0 before I even turned around, and it didn't get any better after that."

The Tigers' loss ends their season at 19-11, while Penn State (16-15) will continue early next week against either Siena or Massachusetts at a location to be determined.