Turnoveritis has plagued the Penn State men's basketball team and it was lethal last night.

The Nittany Lions (6-18, 1-12 Big Ten) turned the ball over 14 times in the first half and 21 times for the game, dropping a 79-55 decision to Purdue (17-8, 9-5) in West Lafayette, Ind.

With 8:30 remaining in the first half, the Lions had 11 turnovers and one field goal, which was a jump shot by Brandon Cameron. At that point, Penn State trailed the Boilermakers 23-5. The full court pressure by Purdue caused a lot of the problems for Penn State.

"We played tentative," Penn State men's basketball coach Jerry Dunn said on the Penn State Sports Radio Network.

"Purdue pressured us, and we didn't handle it. It created many easy buckets for them."

Unlike on Saturday against Minnesota when the Golden Gophers recorded 18 steals, the Lions turned the ball over in every way imaginable. Penn State was called twice for a five-second violation inbounding the ball.

They had multiple offensive fouls, numerous traveling violations and even stepped out of bounds with the ball a couple of times. Dunn said the turnovers weren't due to trying to be too careful.

"They were the best defensive team we have faced all season," Dunn said. "In the half court, sometimes we had a hard time getting into what we wanted to run. We just lost our poise."

Compounding the turnover problem were the issues the Lions had shooting.

Penn State shot 35 percent from the field in the first half.

The Lions only took 17 shots in the first 20 minutes action, and had only three more attempts than turnovers.

"The first half was as poorly as we shot all season," Dunn said.

Penn State finished the game shooting 44 percent after shooting nearly 50 percent in the second stanza. As good as the Lions were, Purdue scorched the nets, at a clip of better than 60 percent.

The Boilermakers had a 20-point halftime lead, and it swelled to 24 a few minutes into the second half, before Penn State responded and went on an 11-2 run.

The Lions cut the lead to 13, as Sharif Chambliss knocked down one of his five three-pointers.

Chambliss led the Lions with 21 points on 6-for-13 form the field.

On the following two Boilermakers' possessions, they got dagger-like threes from Matt Kiefer and Melvin Buckley, respectively, stretching the lead back to 19.

Willie Deane shined in his last home game by scoring a game-high 21 points.

Cameron put together his best game in a Penn State uniform scoring a career-high nine points, including a three, in 26 minutes.

He recorded three assists, but did contribute to the team's turnover problems, with three.

Doctor Dunn needs to find a cure for the Lions' disease immediately if they have any aspirations of winning on Saturday at Evanston,Ill., against Northwestern.