Last night he could have been playing against Kevin Garnett or Chris Webber. But instead he played against Tyler Smith and Kevin Fellows. And it showed.

Jared Jeffries dominated the Lions' frontcourt en route to an 85-51 Indiana victory. The sophomore from Indiana scored the Hoosiers' first nine points and had a game-high 22.

The Lions came out and decided not to double-team Jeffries, which led to easy basket after easy basket. The few times that the Lions did drop two guys on Jeffries he made them pay by kicking the ball out.

"When we did double him they knocked down threes," Penn State coach Jerry Dunn said.

Indiana coach Mike Davis was surprised that the Lions chose not to double-team Jeffries.

"They didn't double him barely" Davis said. "He caught the basketball the first couple of possessions and I think he was surprised as anyone that they were playing man to man."

The Lions threw Jan Jagla, Daren Tielsch, Fellows and Smith at Jeffries and none of them were able to be successful. Hoosier guard Coverdale had nine assists, the majority of them coming on entry passes to Jeffries over top of the Lions defense. Jeffries shot l0-for-15 from the floor.

"If people front me and don't have backside help I really look forward to that because I get a lot of easy layups," Jeffries said.

Jeffries grabbed 13 rebounds in just 27 minutes of court time for a Hoosier team that out-rebounded the Lions 48-26 for the game.

Coming into the game Indiana, had been struggling with its rebounding, but against a Penn State team with no real bulk down low, Jeffries and the Hoosiers had their way.

"I think our team the last couple games just kind of slighted our rebounding," Jeffries said. "We were content with hanging around teams rebounding and being out-rebounded. We want to beat teams on the boards and get that kind of advantage going."

With no one on the floor that could combat Jeffries' size and athleticism, the Lions watched as he dominated both ends of the floor.

"It might have been easy for JJ because he just out-athleted every one of their guys," Dane Fife said.

The reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Year finished his scoring on the night with a spectacular dunk on an alley-oop pass from Coverdale.

That dunk put an exclamation point on a 12-0 run that saw the Hoosiers grab nearly every rebound and outhustle the Lions up and down the court.

"I really wanted to come out and set myself offensively and rebound," Jeffries said.