Sophomore guard Izaiah Brockington came off of the bench to score 23 points to lead No. 21 Penn State to an 89-86 win over No. 23 Iowa in a Big Ten matchup of ranked teams played at The Palestra in Philadelphia on Saturday.
The game was a back-and-forth affair throughout that featured 10 ties and 24 lead changes.
The teams were tied at 79-79 with 1:47 remaining before Penn State took an 83-79 lead with 41.9 seconds left on a dunk by senior center Mike Watkins and a basket by senior forward Lamar Stevens.
Iowa closed within two at 83-81 with 32.9 seconds left on a pair of free throws by freshman guard Joe Toussaint, but Penn State regained a four-point lead at 85-81 with 28.9 seconds left on two free throws by sophomore guard Myles Dread.
Penn State then got a stop on defense and took an 87-81 lead with nine seconds remaining on two more free throws by Dread.
A basket by Toussaint with 3.6 seconds left and free two throws by Dread with 3.2 seconds remaining made it an 89-83 game in favor of Penn State.
Toussaint made a 3-pointer at the buzzer to round out the scoring.
Stevens and senior guard Curtis Jones each scored 16 points for Penn State (12-2, 2-1 Big Ten), which has won five straight.
Junior center Luka Garza, who entered the game as the leading scorer in the conference, had 34 points and 12 rebounds and sophomore Joe Wieskamp had 23 points and 10 rebounds in defeat for Iowa (10-4, 1-2), which saw a four-game winning streak snapped.
Garza, a 63.5 percent free-throw shooter this season entering the game, missed half of his 14 attempts from the line.
Neither team led by more than four points until Penn State used a 9-1 run to take a 35-27 lead with 3:48 left until halftime.
But Iowa responded, ending the first half on a 9-2 run to cut Penn State's lead to 39-38 at halftime.
--Field Level Media
Iowa | Penn St. | |
Luka Garza 34 | Scoring | Izaiah Brockington 23 |
Connor McCaffery 4 | Assists | Myles Dread 4 |
Luka Garza 12 | Rebounds | Myles Dread 7 |
Luka Garza 7 | Free Throws Made | Myles Dread 6 |
Joe Toussaint 2 | Steals | Izaiah Brockington 2 |
Ryan Kriener 3 | Blocks | Mike Watkins 3 |