Cold spell dooms Nittany Lions in tourney opener: Battle scores 1,000th career point in loss to Seawolves

The Nittany Lions played from behind for the final 37 minutes of an 80-69 loss to North Carolina-Wilmington in Carolina First Arena and fell into the tournament's loser's bracket. Penn State (2-1) will face Tulane, which lost 74-54 to Miami (Fla.) in an earlier game Thursday, at 12:30 p.m. today.

The Nittany Lions, who fell to 1-4 in first-round games of in-season tournaments under Ed DeChellis and saw their seven-game winning streak snapped, shot 32 percent from the field and 24 percent (5-of-21) from the 3-point line and let the Seahawks (1-2), who will play the Hurricanes at 3:30 p.m. today, shoot 57 percent and drain 10-of-16 threes, including six of their first seven.

"We were horrible on both ends of the floor," DeChellis said during a postgame radio interview. "I'm not trying to sugarcoat anything."

Talor Battle tied a career high with 29 points, becoming the 29th player to surpass 1,000 points for his Penn State career, but David Jackson (12 points) was the only other Nittany Lion to reach double figures. Chris Babb and Tim Frazier, who combined for 34 points in Monday's win over Robert Morris, were 2-of-12 and 1-of-8 from the

field, respectively. Forward Andrew Jones was 1-of-8.

Senior guard Chad Tomko led Wilmington with 21 points and made 4-of-5 3-pointers. Will Ohuaregbe added 12, including a big basket after Penn State had sliced a 13-point deficit to just two with three minutes remaining. Guards Montez Downey and Ahmad Grant added nine points apiece for the Seahawks, who played 12 players.

Penn State trailed by as many as 10 points in the first half and 40-31 at the break. In the first five minutes of the second half, the Nittany Lions quickly closed to 45-42 on a putback by Jackson,

but then went nearly 61/ 2 minutes without a field goal-- a 3-pointer from Battle at the 8:30 mark snapped an 0-for-11 stretch by Penn State.

"If you're not making shots, you've got to defend people," DeChellis said. "You've got to play smart defensively, and I didn't think we did that."

A three-point play from Ohuaregbe 26 seconds later gave the Seahawks their largest lead of the night, 60-47, before the Nittany Lions got back in the game in an unlikely fashion -- at the free-throw line. Penn State, which made 22 of 27 free throws Thursday, scored 11 points at the line during a 15-4 run, capped by an alley-oop pass from Frazier to Jeff Brooks that made the score 64-62 Wilmington with 3:01 to play.

But then Johnny Wolf drew a second defender on two straight plays, finding Dominique Lacy for a layup and Ohuaregbe for a dunk. Wilmington drained 12 of its final 14 free throws to keep the Nittany Lions at arm's length down the stretch.

It was a game for the guards -- Jones finished with just two points for Penn State, and frontcourt teammates Andrew Ott and Sasa Boronvjak combined for only two more points. Wilmington big man John Fields, who had 21 points in his only previous game this season, played 17 scoreless minutes, grabbing four rebounds and missing his only two attempts from the field.

Battle, who played all 40 minutes, was 8-of-23 from the field and 11-of-12 from the free-throw line and added eight rebounds. Frazier made 6 of 8 free throws, finishing with eight points, four rebounds and three steals in 25 minutes. He was the only Penn State reserve to see more than seven minutes Thursday.

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