If playing the 2-3 zone is an art, then Penn State's defense must have finger-painted a laughable portrait from behind the arc last night.

The Nittany Lions allowed a dozen 3-pointers -- at least six of which went uncontested -- in their tight loss to No. 20 Michigan.

But it wasn't the Wolverines' squad as a whole that demoralized the Penn State men's basketball team.

It was 6-foot-3 Dion Harris.

Like a four-year-old playing "Where's Waldo?," the Lions couldn't find -- or stop -- Harris while on defense. The Michigan junior guard went 7-for-11 from 3-point land and recorded a game-high 23 points.

"They just lost me a lot of the time, and my teammates found me," Harris said.

Harris said he couldn't recall a time earlier in the season when he saw so many open-looks. Conversely, he said his performance was a mixture of being in the zone and the Lions' playing sub-par defense.

Penn State coach Ed DeChellis echoed Harris' statement.

"They're good shooters, and we didn't get out and find them," he said. "It's been one way -- it's been Adam Haluska from Iowa, it's been Shannon Brown from Michigan State.

"We just haven't been able to find the guy we need to find."

And you don't have to be a math major to understand what the statistics have to say.

In Penn State's two wins vs. conference opponents, it has 15 treys to its opponents 15.

In Big Ten losses, however, it's a completely different story.

The Lions are being outscored from the perimeter by more than a 2-to-1 ratio. Penn State has 33 3-pointers to the opposition's 68.

That may be the difference between winning and losing. In last night's game, at least, Michigan's head coach seemed to think so.

"[Threes] were the difference," coach Tommy Amaker said.

"I don't know how many layups we may have missed, but the 3s were going for us. We were fortunate."

Penn State came out of halftime trailing 33-31.

But less than four minutes later, the Wolverines increased the lead to nine after nailing three consecutive treys.

After that, the fat lady could've started singing because Penn State was playing catch-up basketball the rest of the game.

The Lions actually pulled it to within three late, but Michigan guard Daniel Horton put any notion of an upset to sleep.

And on 3-pointer no less. What a surprise.

It wouldn't be so bad if Michigan didn't go 12-of-25 from behind the arc for 48 percent.

Or maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if the Lions shot a little better than 5-of-18.

Maybe. But it was plenty bad -- and that's been quite a familiar pattern this season. Once again, in Big Ten losses, the Lions are allowing the opposition to shoot 3-pointers at a rate of 43.6 percent compared to Penn State's own rate of 30 percent.

If Penn State wants its fortunes to change, it's going to have to reverse those statistics.

Uncontested treys aren't a good thing to give up when your leading 3-point scorer is a guy who's made one start on the season.

Sophomore guard Mike Walker still sees ample time as the sixth man, but his streaky shooting hasn't given the Lions a needed lift.

The good news is Penn State has four decent guards it can play with, but it'll have to figure out a workable equation soon with explosive Illinois on the horizon.