With the new emphasis on calling the game closer this season, the importance of free throws has increased quite a bit.

Saturday's men's basketball game between Penn and Penn State was a perfect example.

In a game where a combined 59 fouls were called and 75 free-throws were shot, both teams were tested at the line.

In the end, the Nittany Lions pulled away due to an impressive 83 percent from the charity stripe.

"I think it's a very significant thing for us," Penn State coach Jerry Dunn said. "I've always said when you don't shoot the ball well, you've got to be able to do some other things.

"We're shooting free throws and when you get to the line, you've got to be able to make your free throws."

That was the recipe on Saturday. Penn State only hit 33 percent from the field and just 26 percent from behind the three-point line. But of its 84 points, 40 came from free-throws.

When told that his team had 48 shots from the line, Lions guard Joe Crispin said, "That's ridiculous!"

In contrast to those gaudy free-throw numbers by Penn State, the Quakers could only make 52 percent of their 27 attempts.

"We're not doing well in the foul shooting area," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "Teams are shooting good against us and we're not shooting very well from the line."

The Quakers became the fourth team this year to miss double-digit free-throws against the Lions. But just as much as Penn hurt itself from the line, it also had three players foul out.

Guards Lamar Plummer and David Klatsky and forward Ugonna Onyekwe all took a seat on the bench before time expired due to picking up their fifth foul.

Plummer perhaps hurt the most, as he had to take his 20 points to the bench with seven minutes left in regulation.

"It's the way the officiating is right now," Dunphy said. "I'm not overly thrilled by it. It stops the flow of the game and, like tonight, it becomes a foul-shooting contest.

"The bottom line for me is, let the kids decide who's going to win the game. The officials shouldn't be part of the game that way. The officials should clean everything up."

Both players and coaches said afterwards that it's just a matter of adjusting. Until that adjustment actually takes place, Penn State said they don't really mind all the free shooting that much.

"It's not all that bad for us because we're a good free throw shooting team," Crispin added. "We're going to knock down our free throws, so that could be to our advantage."

"They're our whole power play," he said after Friday's game.

Despite the Icers tough weekend, Battista found a silver lining in how his team performed.

"It would have been easy for us to say 'Oh jeez, we don't have Alon, we don't have Josh so we're going to get killed,' but there was none of that," he said. "The guys played their hearts out. . .we played the No. 2 team to two one goal games without a lot of our key players."

In addition to the gritty effort that his team gave, Battista discovered that some of his seldom used players have what it takes to compete against stiff competition.

"Eric Harbaugh was outstanding this weekend," he said. "He came into his own. To me he proved that he's a guy that can be counted on to be in the lineup every game. And Ryan Tocicki did a solid job and we got a solid effort from our gold line."