BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- Ole Miss used a furious late-game rally to defeat the Nittany Lions 74-72 in the early game of Wednesday's doubleheader of the NIT Season Tip-Off at the Barclays Center. Senior forward Lamar Stevens finished the night with a game-high 22 points and senior forward Mike Watkins recorded his 28th career double-double with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Watkins also tied his career high in blocked shots with eight.
The Rebels' Bryce Williams connected on two free throws with 13.8 seconds left to give Ole Miss its only lead of the game. Penn State's potential game-winning 3-point attempt was off the mark.
"Give Ole Miss credit, what a great second half they played," said Penn State men's basketball coach Patrick Chambers. "They made shots, they got big stops, they turned us over…We just don't have that mental toughness to be able to keep competing at a high level to be able to finish games. We have to learn how to win…We have to reinforce our habits (and) reinforce our mental conditioning…We needed to take every possession as serious as the first half and all the possessions in the first half. We need to toughen up mentally."
The Nittany Lions came out of halftime with a 43-27 lead after shooting 53.3 percent from the field. Watkins, who had 14 points in 13 minutes in the first half, started a 9-2 run for a 52-31 Penn State advantage at the 16:23 mark.
A stretch of poor shooting for Penn State, going 2-8 from the floor over the next five minutes, allowed the Rebels to start to creep back into the game. Three-straight 3-pointers by Ole Miss over a span of 90 seconds midway through the second half reduced the Nittany Lion lead to single digits at 57-50.
Stevens popped in a 3-pointer to put the Nittany Lion lead back to 10 and baskets by sophomore guard Izaiah Brockington and Watkins put the score at 64-50 with 7:21 to play.
Over the next 4:29, Penn State's next six points would come at the free throw line. The Rebels used a 15-4 run to pull within three, 68-65.
The two teams traded points at the charity stripe over the next 75 seconds before Rebel guard Breein Tyree tied the game at 70 all with 76 seconds left when he scored in the paint and then converted the three-point play.
Breein countered Steven's go-ahead field goal 12 seconds later with another to tie the game at 72 with just 26 seconds remaining.
Williams finished the game with his two free throws for the final 74-72 margin.
Penn State kept Ole Miss' top three scorers to a combined nine points in the first half as the team's leading scorer, Tyree, was scoreless in the first 20 minutes. Tyree finished with 18 points and went 7-13 from the field in the second half. Williams had 13 of his 15 points in the second period.
The Nittany Lions forced 14 Rebel turnovers in the first 20 minutes, but Ole Miss had only one in the second half. Ole Miss cashed in on 12 points off the Nittany Lions' eight turnovers in the second half and had the 13-7 bench points advantage in that timeframe.
Ole Miss advances to Friday night's championship game against Oklahoma State, the 86-72 winner of the second game of the doubleheader. Penn State will play Syracuse in the 7 p.m. contest.
