If the preseason crowd at the Bryce Jordan Center was quiet last night, then the Edinboro offense was nearly silent in an exhibition contest against the Penn State men's basketball team. The Nittany Lions handily took care of the Fighting Scots, winning 71-58 in the final tune-up before next Saturday's regular season opener against Cornell.

Sophomore Geary Claxton led the Lions with 16 points in 21 minutes of action in front of the 2,200 fans in attendance. Claxton shot 7-for-8 from the field, including a first half dunk on a breakaway led by Mike Walker and another dunk on an alley-oop from Ben Luber with Penn State leading 46-20 in the second.

"We did a good job of doing what Coach wanted in pushing the ball down the floor and running as fast as we could," Claxton said.

Penn State outpaced Edinboro 17-4 in fast break points, a category in which Lions coach Ed DeChellis wants -- and perhaps needs -- his team to excel.

Though DeChellis was pleased with the way his starters played and ran the court in the first half, the coach was not impressed with the play of his bench.

"We played pretty well in the first half, we did some pretty good things," DeChellis said. "I'm not real happy with the bench play. The way things evolved kind of got out of whack. The guys coming off the bench really didn't do what they had to do."

The Fighting Scots were limited to 25 percent shooting in the first half, and were just 1-for-11 from three-point range. Penn State mixed it up on defense in the first period, switching from man coverage to zones, and then a press toward the end of the half.

"I was pretty pleased with our one zone, I was pretty pleased with our press," DeChellis said. "We made a few traps and got a few loose balls."

Then the Lions came back out for an uninspiring second half.

Penn State was outscored 42-33 in the second, as former Lion Daren Tielsch netted 20 of his game-high 22 points. Tielsch started nine games for Penn State under former coach Jerry Dunn in the 2001-02 season.

Luber said the Lions must work on their defense before the regular season kicks off. The Scots scored three more points off turnovers than did the Lions, and out-blocked Penn State 7-2.

There were also points in the first half in which the Penn State defenders allowed Edinboro's perimeter shooters open looks, a poor practice that may not fly as well in the regular season.

Cornell took advantage of its open three pointers against Syracuse on Wednesday night, sinking 11 of 23 attempts. The Big Red had No. 16 Syracuse on the ropes before the Orange came back in the final minutes to avoid the upset.

DeChellis pointed to Cornell's performance as something that might make his players work harder in practice in the coming week.

"We can get their attention now with that," DeChellis said.