By Kevin Wesley
So how’s this for a five-day stretch: Penn State followed a three-point road loss to the best team in the country with a one-point road loss to another top-15 team. In each case, it took a clutch play from an All-American candidate in the closing seconds for their opponent to seal the win. This is how the Nittany Lions earned at least as much respect with back-to-back losses as they did a week earlier with consecutive wins over top-20 teams.
Penn State entered this well-deserved weekend off standing 10-8 overall, meaning the Lions have got to be nearly perfect the rest of the way if they have any shot at an NCAA tournament berth. Even if they’d managed to win at Ohio State or Purdue, the Big Dance would still be a long shot, but the presence of such a scalp on their resume—road wins over top-15 foes are exceptionally rare in college hoops—would have been massive nonetheless. The almost-upsets earned them some national admiration this week, but won’t help them much in March unless they’ve got 20 wins to go with them.
Wednesday’s wrenching 63-62 loss to No. 14 Purdue came down to a pivotal moment in the final seconds, when Boilermaker guard E’Twaun Moore lost control of the ball; it was ultimately touched by Moore and Nittany Lion guard Tim Frazier on its way out of bounds. It all happened awfully fast, but replays showed that Moore probably touched it last. The officials gave the ball to Purdue, and JaJuan Johnson hit the game-winning jumper on the ensuing possession.
It was a brutal way to lose, but for Penn State hoops fans of a certain age, it stirred memories of a much more egregious bit of late-game officiating that cost the Lions an even more memorable upset. It’s been 18 long years, but the circumstances—a star-struck Penn State squad in its first season of Big Ten play, and the presence of Bobby Knight and No. 1 Indiana in Rec Hall—mean that game is etched permanently into a lot of minds.
Officially, it was an 88-84, double-overtime win for the visiting Hoosiers. Unofficially, it was and always will be the Lickliter Game.
Back in February of 1993, the Nittany Lions were admittedly overwhelmed as they made their first run through one of the nation’s powerhouse conferences. The biggest bully in the league at that time was Indiana, the top-ranked team in the nation under legendary coach Bobby Knight. A month earlier, Penn State had faced the Hoosiers on the road—and lost by 48 points.
ESPN came to Rec Hall for this one, which, back before there were 300 national cable sports channels, was a really big deal. And while it figured the Lions might make things a bit more competitive in front of a packed home gym, no one could have expected what happened that night. What happened was an inspired Penn State performance that matched the intensity of the expectant crowd, giving the Lions’ a chance for what would’ve been the biggest win in the history of the program.
Somehow, Penn State took a four-point lead into the final 30 seconds, the pivotal play coming when guard Michael “Q-Tip” Jennings stole the ball, drove for a layup and was fouled, completing a three-point play. The roar of that Rec Hall crowd—which, with fans literally packed on the edge of the court and lining the running track above, made for a far greater big-game environment than anything the Bryce Jordan Center could ever offer—nearly blew the roof off the old building. Suddenly, the impossible looked probable.
But Fate didn’t want an upset that night. After Indiana scored to cut the lead to two, the Nittany Lions inbounded and appeared to have regained their lead when Greg Bartram took a long inbounds pass and scored on a layup with 17 seconds left. For a few seconds, the crowd was too busy losing its collective mind to realize that the basket had been waved off; veteran referee Sam Lickliter had called Bartram for pushing off on IU defender Greg Graham, which he had—but only after Graham yanked on his jersey. Lickliter missed it, but most in the building, and the millions watching ESPN’s multiple replays, saw the jersey yank clear as day.
Indiana went on to tie it with a pair of free throws, and it took a pair of overtime periods before IU pulled out the four-point win. Afterward, Knight acknowledged the Nittany Lions’ hard luck in the post-game press conference. “If I was a fan—and I’m not—I’d be rooting for Penn State,” Knight said. “They deserved to win.”
That 1992-93 team was a lovable loser that would go on to finish in the Big Ten basement. This year’s Nittany Lions have hinted at much more. They won’t get another shot at Purdue, but the No. 1 Buckeyes do visit on March 1. Maybe, 18 years later, they can make up for the one that got away.
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