For most of this season, the Penn State men's basketball team has not been able to finish games with much breathing room.

This was not the case Wednesday night, as the Nittany Lions outscored Long Island University, 38-16, in the second half on their way to a 66-45 victory.

"In the second half I thought we came out and played much better," head coach Ed DeChellis said. "We were playing with intensity."

Penn State was unable to do anything inside early against a shorter Long Island team that forced the Lions to take a considerable amount of three-point shots.

LIU outscored Penn State by a lopsided 18-2 margin inside the paint in the first half. In fact, Penn State's first-half three-point field goal percentage, 46.2 percent, was higher than its total field goal percentage of 30 in the first frame.

"In the first half they were really clogging in the paint and not letting us get any touches," junior forward Geary Claxton said. "The second half we just tried to penetrate and drive."

Injuries have plagued the Lions this season. A weakened bench kept the starters on the court longer, leading to difficulties holding a lead.

On Wednesday night, though, most of the team was healthy with the exception of guard Ben Luber who is nursing an ankle impingement in his left ankle.

"That's frustrating in practice, it's frustrating to try and get your team better when you don't have the guys you are counting on to play every night," DeChellis said of the abundance of injuries.

Senior guard David "Mooch" Jackson's strong defensive play against LIU leading scorer James Williams was also key in staying ahead of the Blackbirds.

"[Williams is] a very good shooter, so the thing coming into the game was to make a shooter a driver," DeChellis said. "I thought David Jackson did a really good job of getting into him and making it tough for him and making him doing some things he didn't want to do."

Heading into Wednesday's game, the team was ranked 10th in the conference in turnover margin and assist/turnover ratio. The main concern against the Blackbirds was ball control and keeping turnovers to a minimum.

"It was nice to get a little breathing room," DeChellis said. "We haven't been able to do that."