Titus Ivory and Joe Crispin sat at the table, separated their chairs and faced opposite sides of the room. Crispin's eyes were red and angry. Ivory stared blankly in disbelief.

It was March 3, and a sparse Bryce Jordan Center crowd had just witnessed the Nittany Lions blow a 20-point halftime lead to Ohio State. The loss meant that Penn State would need a strong showing in the Big Ten tournament to reach the dance.

It was senior night, and their final farewell to Happy Valley couldn't have gone worse.

The crux of the problem wasn't what happened on the court — the Buckeyes had gone to a four-guard set and ran around the Lions playground style — but what happened in the locker room.

When reporters asked if team chemistry was shaky, Crispin simply looked down.

Ivory looked up at the reporter, and half-heartedly slammed his fist into his hand.

And that, right there, was the answer to the question.

The Nittany Lion offense was a machine in the first half, executing as well as it had all year. So Ohio State coach Jim O'Brien, the Big Ten coach of the year, scrapped his offense and tried to counter the Penn State attack with speed and perimeter shooting.

You know the infamous Gyasi Cline-Heard celebration where he picks up the Lion and carries him around? Well, Joe Crispin has a tendency to try to do that with the basketball team when games get tight, and he simply can't shoulder it.

Crispin is capable of boosting the Lions in spurts via a few big threes. But no player hits from beyond the arc consistently enough to single-handedly win ball games, especially when facing the type of defensive pressure Crispin saw this season.

In the Ohio State game he was nine-of-25 from the field including three-of-13 from three-point land. He missed open passes, rushed shots and turned the ball over. He finished with 29 points, but 19 came in the first half.

Ivory and Cline-Heard, the other members of the senior triumvirate, knew that for the Lions to be effective Crispin had to create opportunities and spread the ball around.

But Crispin is stubborn. He wants to win and he wants the ball when the game is on the line. And sometimes, despite his best intentions, he hurts the team. His play in that second half was selfish, and his teammates didn't appreciate it.

It took an embarrassing loss for Crispin to realize that he is more valuable to the Lions when he makes other players around him better rather than trying to make all the baskets.

After the game, Penn State coach Jerry Dunn claimed he didn't see the verbal sparring on the bench.

But he did. And he knew that it was part of the growing process his team would have to go through to become serious contenders in tournament play, when everything is on the line.

Dunn let his players deal with it. Instead of going out like that, the three seniors put it behind them and decided to play, and to show the rest of the country that they are for real.

Everyone looked past the Lions. They were too small, too slow and didn't have enough skill. Two wins and millions of desecrated office-pool brackets later, they are off to Atlanta for their first Sweet 16 appearance since Dwight Eisenhower lived in the White House.

Announcers call them signature games: victories that seem to typify a season, like Penn State's wins against power-houses Kentucky, Temple, Illinois, Michigan State and North Carolina.

But ask Crispin, Ivory and Cline-Heard which game was pivotal in starting this improbable run into the heart of March, and they'll probably point to that debacle against Ohio State as the start of all the Madness.