Hard to decide which type of domination is stronger. Penn State’s college basketball domination over Northwestern, or Talor Battle’s owning of the PSU hoops record book. State has won six in a row and ten of eleven versus NU.
Even when they went 3-15 in conference last year, the Lions still beat the Cats twice. And in the Penn State record book, Battle is first all time in minutes, starts, and (if current projections hold, come Big Ten Tournament time) scoring. He’s also third in field goals, assists, and three-pointers.
And on Thursday night, Penn St. jumped out to a 18-2 lead, never looked back and scored a very convincing 66-52 victory in Evanston.
And tonight saw history as well. Battle became the first player in Big Ten (and just the 10th in NCAA Division 1) history to record 2,000 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists.
By Paul M. Banks
Jeff Brooks led PSU with 20 points on 8-10 shooting, to go along Talor Battle’s 13. Tim Frazier and David Jackson were also in double figures. Michael “Juice” Thompson led the game with 22, on 9-16 from the floor.
With the win Penn State (15-12; 8-8 Big Ten) moved back closer to the bubble and Northwestern dropped 16-11; 6-10 in the Big Ten. The Nittany Lions record isn’t impressive, but they have the 6th highest schedule strength and their RPI isn’t bad either.
“Just a horrible start to the game,and we just weren’t able to get over it. We shot 6-24 from three, and Mike was the only guy making ’em. This was a tough loss for us,” said NU Coach Bill Carmody.
The Lions downed the Wildcats 65-51 (interesting how the score here was so remarkably close) in the Jordan Center 11 days ago behind 19 points and 7-of-9 shooting from Battle.
“We try to give ball pressure, as well as we can, and try to get into the passing lanes, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t and tonight it was working,” said Penn State Coach Ed DeChellis.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net. He is also a regular contributor to the Tribune’s Chicago Now network, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports.com
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