Blue White Illustrated

Persson took a full-court throw from Jim Reed in the corner, turned around and shot into the basket as the buzzer sounded. The jubilant fans instantly swarmed onto the court and the photo in the museum shows the mass of humanity carrying Persson off the floor. Syracuse coach Fred Lewis complained angrily about the fans after the game, telling reporters, including John Lott of the Collegian, "That's the worst sportsmanship I've ever seen in college basketball. ... You make West Virginia look like child's play. The referees should have called a technical foul the minute the fans started throwing stuff on the floor. How" ever, Lott pointed out, "So the Rec Hall fans threw things Monday night and well they might. Lenny Toff and Hal Grossman put on the most ludicrous display of whistle-tooting in recent history. " WORKING OVERTIME Officiating controversies aside, the Indiana thriller was the last of 33 men's basketball overtime games in Rec Hall, including the first, the 37-34 overtime win over Gettysburg in the first basketball game played in the newly constructed building on Jan. 15, 1929. "Jack Browne's accurate foul shooting, coupled with the decided comeback staged by his teammates in the extra period of Saturday's game, paved the way for Penn State's 37 to 34 victory," reported the semi-weekly student newspaper, The Penn State Collegian. With time running out in regulation, the Lions trailed 3129, "but Brown sent the game [to] a 31-31 deadlock with two penalty tosses." Gettysburg had a three-point lead after three minutes of overtime when "Jack Mazees sent the leather sphere through the cords three times to clinch the contest for the Lions." The men's team won 13 more overtime games in Rec Hall but lost 17, and that included the record five-overtime loss to a Temple team rated No. 3 in the East, 6360, on Feb. 14, 1945. Because classes had ended and the student newspaper did not publish for about a month, the historic game was barely mentioned weeks later in a brief roundup of the season headlined "Batnick Tops Lion Cage Scorers. Buried " in the third of four paragraphs was this first sentence: "Only Temple defeated the Nittany team twice, the first time battling on into five overtime periods before downing State, 63-60." Two more men's games went three overtimes, and both were significant games in the history of Penn State basketball, which began in 1897. On Jan. 28, 1954, the Lions defeated their top rival Pittsburgh, 91-85, en route to the team's only appearance in the NCAA Final Four. Nearly 19 years later, Penn State lost to 11thranked Alabama, 75-67, on Dec. 11, 1982. "Coach Elmer Gross saw his cagers come from behind in two frenzied overtime periods against the Panthers, wrote assistant " sports editor Dick McDowell in the Collegian in 1954, "and then pulled ahead for keeps in the third extra stanza. The score " was tied 61-61 at the end of regulation, and then 71-71 and 76-76 in the first two overtimes. But the Lions dominated the third OT, with Penn State's only firstteam All-American, Jesse Arnelle, leading the way and finishing with 31 points. The win gave the Lions a 10-2 record, and they went on to finish 18-6 and place third in the NCAA Tournament. Oh, it should be mentioned that 12 days after that win over Pitt, Penn State defeated West Virginia in Rec Hall, 85-68, but the victory was overshadowed by the sudden death of a spectator before the game started. This unfortunate incident wouldn't be newsworthy in this story except for the fact that the deceased, Rees Wetson, was the brother-in-law of Burke "Dutch" Herman, the popular men's basketball coach from 1916-32, who was with Wetson awaiting the tipoff. As for the 1982 loss to Alabama, it was the 11th time coach Dick Harter's team had failed to defeat a Top 20 team since his hiring prior to the 1978-79 season. Harter, with 20 years of head coaching experience, primarily at Penn and Oregon, had been expected to rejuvenate the Nittany Lion program. But the best he could do was get the 1979-80 team into the NIT with an 18-10 record. Harter ended up leaving for an assistant coaching job in the NBA, and his successor – Parkhill – truly did lead a rejuvenation. LADY LIONS MOVE IN Although the "Lickliter game" of 1993 is the benchmark of Rec Hall overtime games, many memorable men's and women's games there had nothing to do with overtime. The Lady Lions played their first game in Rec Hall on March 24, 1976, and its only memorable aspect was that the game was part of the national postseason tournament of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), a semi-independent group that ran women's college sports programs from 1971-81 before being absorbed into the NCAA. The Daily Collegian did not even mention in its coverage of the Lady Lions' 88-46 loss to defending AIAW champion Delta State that the team was playing its first game in Rec Hall. The tournament games had been moved from the women's home court in the White Building, and Rec Hall did not formally become the team's home court until the 1979-80 season. As the Lady Lions expanded their schedule and upgraded their talent and coaching staff, the team gained more followers. There were 3,233 spectators on hand when the women upset No. 3 Louisiana Tech during the 1985-86 season, Rene Portland's sixth year as head coach. Trailing 33-26 at halftime, the Lady Lions entertained the crowd after the intermission with "an outstanding defense" and "aggressive offense" that built up a 10-point lead before stopping a last-ditch effort by Tech. "Thank the crowd for being our sixth man tonight," Portland told reporters. "When you have a crowd like this behind you, there's no stopping you." Two years later, 3,122 fans were in Rec Hall when the Lady Lions did it again, upsetting the second-ranked Lady Techsters, 66-62, in a game that a Collegian reporter stated "could easily have been billed as the Suzie McConnell Show. Mc" Connell, who would later become the Lady Lions' first first-team All-American, scored 31 points with seven assists and four steals to lead the victory. If the McConnell show was not the most memorable game for the Lady Lions, then perhaps it was the one they played on Feb. 6, 1994, against eighth-ranked Iowa.

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