Saturday's outcome may have led to some of the usual postgame head-scratching, but one thing was for certain. Neither coach was pleased with his team's performance.

Subpar shooting, inconsistent defense and a combined 37 fouls drove the coaches to their wits' end, as No. 19 Ohio State pulled ahead to defeat the Penn State men's basketball team, 75-64, at the Bryce Jordan Center.

"Offensively we had no flow, we had no transition," Buckeyes coach Thad Matta said. "We weren't very good today."

The same thing could've been said of the Lions (10-6, 2-3 Big Ten). But whenever Penn State shot itself in the foot, it seemed like Ohio State was there to capitalize. That especially rang true at the start of the second half.

The Lions committed three turnovers in the first two minutes -- Ben Luber accounted for a pair -- to watch their 32-27 halftime deficit swell to double digits.

"We kinda let one mistake lead to another mistake," Penn State coach Ed DeChellis said, snapping his fingers. "And just like that, it went from five to nine or 10 points. Just like that."

By comparison, the Lions only turned the ball over five times throughout the game's opening 20 minutes. But the three-turnover, two-minute run sucked the life right out of the crowd -- and, it seemed, out of the team as well.

Penn State guard David Jackson said it was difficult to play come-from-behind basketball, pointing out that the two halves were pretty different from one another.

When the Lions shot 28.9 percent from the floor in the first half, they still rebounded well. And when they finally shot well in the second half, they couldn't rebound -- Penn State recorded a measly five boards.

According to freshman forward Jamelle Cornley, that huge drop-off in rebounds was a direct result of Ohio State boxing out more effectively. The Buckeyes (14-2, 4-2) out-rebounded Penn State, 14-5, for the half.

"Even though we played bad [in the first half], we were still down five," Jackson said. "We just had a bad start to the second half."

Free throws further separated the teams, as Ohio State went 23-for-28 from the charity stripe -- compared to Penn State's 9-for-15 performance.

Despite that difference, the game was still closer than the team's first meeting 18 days ago, when the Lions were blown out by 35 points. Cornley admitted that fact made him feel a little better.

"We lost by 11 -- 11's better than 35 any day," he said. "We're not satisfied with the loss, but we competed and played hard.

"We just didn't play well."