The Nittany Lions' (9-14, 3-9) determination in front of a national television audience was spoiled by the virtuoso performance by Brown.
He took over the last 12 minutes of the game, scoring 19 of his game-high 24 points during that stretch.
"I told [my teammates] after the last game [against Wisconsin] I was going to get hot," Brown said.
The Lions had everything going for them in the second half as they shot 64.7 percent. That was a far cry from the 13.5 percent effort in the second half at Champaign, Ill., when the Lions were drubbed 80-37. The only thing the Lions didn't have going for them was that Brown was on the other team.
The Fighting Illini's best player seemed hesitant in the first half, but he proved to be the difference once his teammates got into a back-and-forth battle. Around the 30 percent mark for his career from downtown, he finished the game shooting 6-for-10 from behind the arc. Teammate Luther Head also had a productive night from long-range, hitting 4-for-9 for 14 points.
"[Brown] is not a great three-point shooter," DeChellis said. "Head was shooting about 18 percent on the road from three-point range. We rolled the dice and lost."
For the better part of the game, Penn State freshman guards Marlon Smith and Ben Luber had gotten the better of Brown, but neither had the firepower to keep pace with "the one-man fast break." Smith and Luber answered Brown's three-point barrage with some foul shots, and Smith hit a couple three-pointers, but in the duo's best game since playing Northwestern on Jan. 28, neither they nor their teammates had an answer.
The Illini took a 26-20 lead into halftime, but the Lions came out in the second half with the intensity that was sorely missing in their last two road contests. The offense created easy baskets throughout the game and had assists on 16 of Penn State's 20 made buckets.
Robert Summers and Jan Jagla, who finished with nine and 10 points, respectively, scored the first nine points of the half to cut the Illinois lead to two. Forward Aaron Johnson then nailed a three-point basket from the top of the arc to give the Lions their first lead of the second half. The lead would get as big as three, and then the teams got on the seesaw with the lead changing on almost every possession. The Illini took the lead for good at 41-39, on a three-point play by Brown's backcourt-mate Deron Williams.
Brown went over to apologize to the fans during the foul shot for that three-point play.
"I made a shot turned around and said something I shouldn't have said in front of adults and I just apologized for what I said," Brown said.
Illinois coach Bruce Weber was asked if the Illini would have lost if Brown hadn't put the team on his back.
"I don't think there is any doubt," Weber said.
