They say it’s tough to beat a team three times in a season.  When that team is Indiana, though, maybe not.

A lot of us Penn State fans were nervous about this game.  Indiana had played us tight in our first two matchups.  Sure, they were a last-place team, but they had improved over the season.  They would be playing with nothing to lose.

As it turned out, they played with nothing to gain.  Without leading scorer Devan Dumes, out with an injury, the only Hoosier who showed up was Verdell Jones III, whho finished with 23 points, and made all 4 of his threes.  Indiana played sloppy basketball, and Penn State capitalized.  Penn State actually had 10 steals as a team, of Indiana’s 15 turnovers.  The Hoosiers kept it relatively close in the first half, cutting an early 18 point Penn State lead down to 9, but Penn State turned it back up to 13 at the half.  To start the second, the Nittany Lions went on an 11-3 run that took the life out of the Indiana players.

The story of this game was Jamelle Cornley.  Per Erin Andrews, Cornley has been telling his teammates that they need to win the entire Big Ten tournament to make the NCAA tournament.  Clearly, that shouldn’t be the case, but Jamelle put the team on his back tonight.  He finished with 22 points, but 16 of them were in the first half, where he went off.  He scored the first eight points of the game, hitting two three pointers in the process.  In fact, he and Stanley Pringle were the only Lions to score for the first 8 minutes, compiling the first 22 for Penn State.  But Cornley was the story: he hit 9 of 12 shots, and did the dirty work down low.  In fact, he even drew a Brent Musberger comparison to Charles Barkley.

Pringle had another fantastic performance, adding 16 points on 6-12 shooting.  Talor Battle, on the other hand, struggled, and at one point in the first half, he limped off the court with a bum ankle.  When he returned from the locker room, though, he looked solid enough.  He only shot the ball three times, nailing one three, but dished out six assists.  It looked like he didn’t want to exert himself too much, and frankly, with a game tomorrow, that was the right gameplan.  He did supply a definite SportsCenter highlight, a sweet ally-oop pass that Jeff Brooks threw down with gusto.

David Jackson had a real nice 10 point game.  In the middle of the season, it looked like he had lost his confidence: he wouldn’t shoot when open, he missed lay-ups, he was tentative on defense.  Today, he crashed the boards with gusto, and took plenty of jumpers.  Granted he missed most of them, but it’s good to see him with his groove back.  Of his 5 rebounds, 4 were on the offensive glass, which led to some nice put-back opportunities.

The role players got plenty of time to play: Brooks, Ott, Morrissey, even Leiner all saw extended playing time.  That might be the best thing from this game: not fantastic offensive execution in the first half, but that our starters got plenty of rest.  And that offensive execution was there.  Until the 10 minute mark of the second half, Penn State kept their foot on the gas pedal, with 61 points.  They only scored 66 for the game, but that’s more due to the quality of the players on the floor for the end of the game.

One negative: the free throw shooting was beyond abysmal.  I think you need a new word to describe how Penn State shot from the charity stripe tonight.  4-13 is just ouch.  Oh, and what was going on with ESPN cutting away from the game to show us the end of Kansas State-Texas?  They thought Around the Horn was more important?

This was a win that Penn State absolutely had to have.  Conseco Fieldhouse wasn’t filled with Indiana fans, I guess they knew what was coming.  The Penn State contingent was small, but definitely loud.  Tomorrow, I’m sure Purdue will have a nice fanbase in attendance.  That’s going to be a huge game.

The way I saw it going into the Big Ten tournament was this: win 0 and we’re in the NIT, win 1 and we’re sweating it out, win 2 and we’re in.  Well, at the very least, we’re still alive.  Penn State might not need a win tomorrow, but it would be a huge boost.  Doug Gottlieb seemed to think we needed the win in the post-game show, but Lavin and Musberger basically acknowledged us as in.  Speaking of Lavinberger, they were frankly hilarious.  I guess they really couldn’t care less about the game towards the end there, and basically started talking about things like Subway.  Oh, and Erin Andrews is so freaking hot.

Well, I don’t get the Big Ten Network, but if you do, tune in tomorrow at 9.  Win and we’re in.