As Demetri McCamey released his shot, Talor Battle put his hand in the face of the Illinois guard, turned around to box him out and watched the 3-pointer hit the bottom of the net.
All the junior guard could do was look toward the Bryce Jordan Center ceiling with his arms raised and a disgusted, defeated look on his face.
For the Penn State men's basketball team, it is a far too familiar feeling this season.
McCamey's 3-pointer with less than two minutes remaining iced Illinois' 77-67 victory over Penn State Wednesday night, and it extended the Lions' losing streak to eight games -- one that has drawn criticism to a team that set a program-high in wins a season ago.
Head coach Ed DeChellis said he understood the criticism that comes with an eight-game losing streak in conference play, but with 10 conference games remaining, he said he had no time to worry about it.
"People can criticize -- that's their right. We're 0-8," DeChellis told the media in the postgame press conference. "I don't read what you guys write. I really don't care. I've got to do what I've got to do, and our staff has to do what we have to do. If I start worrying about criticism, then I wouldn't get anything done."
DeChellis received a three-year extension in the offseason following a National Invitation Tournament title last year. But this season, the Lions (8-12) are off to an 0-8 start in conference play despite holding second-half leads in six of those eight games.
The mood in the locker room, DeChellis said, was how he would expect it to be following eight consecutive losses: frustrated.
"We're just gonna hang in there and keep working," DeChellis said.
"I'm not happy, players aren't happy, fans aren't happy -- no one's happy. Only we can do something about it."
Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, who was in attendance at Wednesday's game, said he preferred not to comment on the program with the season still in progress.
Sophomore guard Chris Babb defended his coach following the game, saying the blame for the losses stretched throughout the whole program.
"You can't point the blame at any one person," Babb said. "We're all a team. We're all Penn State basketball. We win as a team, and we lose as a team. Last year, we won the NIT, we were a team. This year we're 0-8, we're still a team. We're still together."
Babb directed blame away from DeChellis by noting the Lions' inability to make plays down the stretch as their primary struggle.
Illinois coach Bruce Weber specifically pointed to the McCamey shot that put Illinois up by 10 as the shot clock expired with less than two minutes to go, saying making crucial plays like that were the difference between Penn State and some of the better teams in the Big Ten.
"I just feel bad for Ed," Weber said. "You lost your heart and soul in [Stanley] Pringle, [Jamelle] Cornley and [Danny] Morrissey. Not only were they good players, but they had so many minutes of experience and so much leadership and determination to make those plays when it counts."
The road doesn't get any easier for the Lions, as their next two games are away contests against ranked teams. On Sunday they travel to No. 10 Purdue and on Wednesday they face Ohio State in Columbus.
Looking back on the losses, junior forward D.J. Jackson said, will serve no purpose in trying to snap the streak.
"We're the ones who got ourselves into this, and we're the ones who have to pull ourselves out of it," he said. "It's not going to just go away. We have to make it go away."
