Penn St.'s first Big Ten win another tough loss for NU

Northwestern's NCAA Tournament bubble likely burst last week at Iowa.

Just in case the folks in Evanston didn't hear that resounding pop, Penn State stuck a defining needle into the Wildcats' at-large hopes Wednesday night before 4,175 at Welsh-Ryan Arena.

Though Nittany Lions star Talor Battle had the flu Tuesday - and needed to blow his nose during every timeout huddle Wednesday to clear his breathing passages - his teammates came to the fore as Penn State earned an 81-70 Big Ten victory.

Sophomore guard Chris Babb scored a career-high 20 points and junior forward David Jackson added 20 points (his second-best career effort) to lead Penn State to its first Big Ten win of the season.

Battle, who had led PSU in scoring each of the previous eight games, added 10 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists while gutting out 39-minutes-plus.

"We've always had a stretch where, for three or four minutes, we couldn't score," said Penn State coach Ed DeChellis, "or we didn't defend real well and a tight game got away from us or somebody broke the thing open."

Northwestern (17-9, 6-8) turned into that team Wednesday.

The Wildcats opened a 5-point lead midway through the first half but went into a five-minute scoring drought. Penn State (9-16, 1-12) reeled off 9 points in a row during that stretch and never looked back.

Oh, NU fought back and had a chance to regain a lead on Jeremy Nash's missed 3-pointer with just less than eight minutes to go, but Penn State owned this game.

When the Wildcats weren't busy going 4 of 11 at the free-throw line - center Luka Mirkovic missed all 6 of his second-half tries - their porous 1-3-1 trap and matchup zone kept giving up open 3-pointers and easy layups.

"They did a good job of moving the ball and attacking the gaps and finding the open man," said NU point guard Michael Thompson, who frequently found himself in the post trying to stop guys nearly a foot taller. "We did a lousy job on our rotations and pressuring the ball."

Thompson and John Shurna led NU with 17 points apiece. But Shurna, the team's leading rebounder, didn't grab any as Penn State ruled the boards 36-21.

So what's NU's goal now?

"It's the same as - about 3-4 teams in every major conference that are in the middle," Carmody said. "What are you going to do the next three weeks that separates?

"Some guys are going to go in and head north. Other guys are going to slip back. We want to be in the first group."