GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Left out of the NCAA tournament, Penn State thought it at least would earn a No. 1 seed and home-court advantage through the first three rounds of the NIT.
Instead, the second-seeded Nittany Lions found themselves one step away from Madison Square Garden with the hostile O'Connell Center standing in their way.
Sent on the road to Florida, the Lions responded by beating the top-seeded Gators, 71-62, and joining Tennessee as the only road teams to win in Gainesville this season.
"Going into any arena is always hard no matter where you play at," Penn State forward Jamelle Cornley said. "But to put on the performance that we did and come out with their second loss at home, that's pretty special."
Now, Penn State is rewarded with a punched ticket next Tuesday to the Garden in New York against either Notre Dame or Kentucky.
The NCAA tournament snub appears long forgotten by the Lions, except as extra motivation. Another step has been completed, and now the players will get to experience a first.
"Any player at some point, you always want to play at Madison Square Garden because a lot of history has been there," Cornley said. "Now that we're here in the NIT, we wanted to make sure we took advantage of it.
"It wasn't the bid that we wanted to have, but we wanted to make sure to take advantage of it, and any time you're in some type of national tournament, you want to put on your best performance."
Faced with a hostile crowd and playing in a building that sports national championship banners from both 2006 and 2007 in the rafters, Penn State remained confident and battled through momentum shifts.
The Lions fell behind 32-25 with 4:22 left in the first half but responded by finishing the period on an 8-0 run to lead by one at halftime.
And after a 10-point advantage was cut to two late in the second half, Cornley, Talor Battle and D.J. Jackson led the squad on a 10-3 run to close out the game and seal another victory.
"When we met on Selection Sunday, I challenged them that our goal was to win a national tournament, and these kids have done a great job," Penn State coach Ed DeChellis said. "We made some big plays along the way. George Mason we had to make a play, Rhode Island we played without 'Melle, tonight we played with him and I thought the guys really competed."
While DeChellis and his team may be focused on the cutting down the nets at the Garden next week, Florida coach Billy Donovan couldn't help but reflect on Penn State's previous goal.
"I knew they were really good, probably a team that had a right or maybe an argument to be in the NCAA tournament," Donovan said. "Their team is very, very good - as good as any team we've played this year."
