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If I were one of the 14,686 fans in attendence at the Bryce Jordan Center, I would ask for my money back. In fact, I'm thinking about calling my satelite television provider and demanding a discount on my monthly bill. The biggest travesty of this game is that none of us will get that two hours of our lives back. This rivals the infamous 6-4 football game against Iowa as the worst sporting event ever.

You have to suck pretty bad to hold your opponent to just 54 points and still feel like you lost in a blowout. But that's exactly what Penn State did. They started off well working out to a 20-16 lead midway through the first half. But then Wisconsin went on a 12-1 run to take a seven point lead into the break. In the second half Penn State would pull within four or six points, but Wisconsin would answer and keep the Nittany Lions at arms length.

The Good

Not much. Andrew Jones chipped in with nine points and D.J. Jackson added six. Jeff Brooks even contributed four points. Usually when we get contributions from these guys you can count on Penn State winning pretty comfortably. Hopefully they can keep contributing like this down the road.

Overall Penn State played a pretty smart game only turning the ball over seven times. Too bad Wisconsin only turned the ball over six times.

Penn State was respectable from the free throw line hitting 10-of-14 shots. Talor Battle seems to have fixed his free throw motion. I noticed he used his legs and didn't fade away on his two attempts. And he made them both.

The Bad

There were entirely too many defensive lapses in the half court. Marcus Landry and Jon Leuer had several wide open layups under the rim. And too many guys were getting wide open cuts through the lane for easy points.

Jamell Cornley only had four points on seven shots in 39 minutes. At one point he looked like he injured his hand. He was also wearing a protective sleeve on one leg. On Thursday night they said he partially dislocated his left shoulder.

Talor Battle was getting destroyed every time he drove to the net and went down hard. (And yet he only got two free throw attempts!) One time he layed on the court for an extended period of time and got up holding his lower back. Another time he had to come out of the game and get his right arm looked at. At first I thought they were looking at his shoulder. But then the trainers were asking him to flex his fingers which makes me think it's a hand or wrist problem. The toll of the Big Ten season is really taking its toll on Battle and Cornley. Ed is starting to pay the price for playing these guys 38 minutes every night.

The Ugly

Penn State went 0-for-14 from three point range. Wow. You're not going to win any games like that.

Add that to the fact that Penn State didn't pull down an offensive rebound until midway through the second half and you have a recipe for disaster.

This entire game was ugly. It was slow, methodical, and just unbearable to watch. It's pretty sad when our football team scored more points against Wisconsin than our basketball team did.

Next Up

This was a game we needed to win. Wisconsin is a team that has been struggling, and if you want to be a tournament team you have to win these games at home. A week ago we were riding sky high thinking we could beat anyone in the nation. Right now I don't think there is another team in the Big Ten other than Indiana playing as poorly as we are.

We let two winnable games get away from us. Now we play three ranked teams in the next three games with Purdue, Minnesota, and Illinois. Two of those games are on the road, and then we travel to Ohio State after that. So at this point I have to say our tournament chances are not looking good unless we get things turned around quick.