For anyone who thought the final Illinois/Penn State score was a mistake or was the score from their tilt in football back in the fall, well . . . you’re wrong. That score was 38-24 in favor of the Nittany Lions.            photogallery

This game, while just a little bit higher scoring, set all kinds of records—none of which were the kind the Illini wanted or needed to set as their regular season winds to a close. The Illini offense struggled to find its place the entire game at Assembly Hall on Wednesday night, falling to Penn State 38-33.

The Illini dropped to 21-6 overall and 9-5 in Big Ten play.

The line of record-setting stats verged upon being mind-numbing. Thirty-eight points is the lowest total by a winning team ever at Assembly Hall—the previous low set at 51. At 71, it was the fewest combined points by two teams in Assembly Hall history; 85 was the previous low. It was the worst combined field goal accuracy in Assembly Hall history at 29.2 percent. Last, it was the fewest points scored by an Illinois team at 33, with the previous low being 44.

It also marked the lowest Illinois scoring output since January 21, 1947, when the Illini lost to Minnesota 33-31.

“No, I haven’t been involved in one like this ever,” Penn State head coach Ed DeChellis said. “I kept looking at the score and didn’t know what half we were in. I think this set the game of basketball back a few years. Coach Naismith is rolling over in his grave.”

The Illini offense was fairly balanced in their scoring—there just wasn’t a lot of it. They put up 15 in the first half and 18 in the second. The 15-point first half marked their worst of the season, though the 17 points they held the Nits to was also a season low.

The game marked the third straight home loss to Penn State and left the Illini looking for answers.

“If I knew what our problem was against Penn State at home, we’d have won tonight,” Illinois guard Chester Frazier said. “Trent [Meacham] did a real nice job on [Stanley] Pringle on defense, and [Talor] Battle is a good player and is gonna score some points.”

“He beat me off the ball a couple of times,” Frazier added. “I felt like I did okay against him, though.”

It was difficult to say as the game went along whether it was two incredibly stout defenses or two particularly inept offenses. While both teams put up some impressive defensive stands, both were also victims of turnovers, poor shot selection, and many missed layups.

“I hope it was their defense and not our offense,” Illinois head coach Bruce Weber said. “There wasn’t a lot of emotion early, which caused us to miss some shots you normally make.”

Surprisingly, the score didn’t bother Weber all that much, just the final outcome.

“I didn’t care about score; you just want to win,” Weber said. “We played with a lot of emotion last week, so maybe we’re not playing with a lot this week. To their credit, they defended us well.”

The Illini knew early on that they might have to rely on defense to win the game when they went into the first TV timeout up only 2-0.

“We thought we’d get it going, but we never did,” Illinois senior guard Trent Meacham said. “We had that quick stretch in the second, but that was it. It was just a long night from beginning to end.”

Even still, when the Illini held a 29-20 lead with 10:20 left in the second half, all the momentum had swung Illinois’ way, and it looked as though they may run the Lions out of the gym.

Penn State immediately turned the tables, however, and closed the game on an 18-4 run.

Weber said he hoped that his team would easily get over the loss and not dwell on the strange statistical night.

“You really can’t worry about it after the game, you just gotta play,” Weber said. “In hindsight, you think you might have used Dominique more, and Jeff did a nice job again, maybe you mix it up a little more and try to get a spark from one of those guys.”

The Illini were led by the quiet Mike Tisdale’s 10 points.

Penn State’s leading scorer—as well as the Big Ten’s—Talor Battle, led all scorers with 11 points, but only shot 3 of 11 from the field, including 1 of 5 from three-point range.