That fall back down to earth can be oh so humbling.

Unable to use Saturday's upset over Illinois as a stepping stone, the Penn State men's basketball team (11-10, 3-7 Big Ten) was instead put between a rock and a hard place last night, falling to Minnesota, 77-66.

"That's not knowing how to take a win and parlay it into another win," Penn State coach Ed DeChellis said.

With sloppy play from both teams, the Nittany Lions and Golden Gophers (11-9, 2-7) showed why they sit toward the bottom of the conference standings.

The disheartening crowd of 6,186 saw the Gophers commit 12 turnovers in the first half alone and 18 for the game. Far from blemish-free, Penn State gave the ball away 14 times.

Minnesota, however, was able to emerge from the morass of sloppiness with a victory, which is more than can be said about the Lions last night.

The Gophers out-rebounded the Lions 37-23, collecting more defensive boards (24) than Penn State had total.

"We didn't box nobody out," Penn State senior forward Travis Parker said. "A lot of times we got pushed under and they got the offensive rebound."

Penn State opened up to a 10-0 lead at the start of the game, forcing Minnesota's sloppy offense into unpromising looks and turnovers.

The Gophers did not get on the scoreboard until the 13:00 mark, but then managed to tie it up at 10 apiece, holding the Lions scoreless for almost six minutes.

"That's what we don't understand," Parker said about the Lions jumping out to a lead and then losing their energy. "I don't know what happened with that."

The game flowed back and forth in lackluster fashion for the remainder of the half, with the Lions taking a 27-25 advantage into the locker room.

The Gophers came out hot in the second half and scored 52 points -- quite an output for a team averaging 57.5 points per game.

After some early struggles against Penn State's zone defense, Minnesota coach Dan Monson and the Gophers found something they liked and ran with it.

"Shooting against a zone is different from shooting against man," Monson explained. "I thought maybe this would help us ... maybe this would give us a different look and give our guys some different opportunities."

It also helped that guard Adam Boone was six for seven from downtown in the second half, and that Vincent Grier added 14 points and five assists after the break.

The lone bright spot for the Lions was Parker, who led Penn State with 19 points and nine rebounds before fouling out.

"It's an emotional season with ups and downs, and you've got to ride them out," DeChellis said. "We were very emotional three days ago, and now it's the opposite emotion."