The No. 6 MSU men's basketball team (23-5, 10-5 Big Ten) leads the Penn State Nittany Lions (15-13, 6-9) at the half from Breslin Center, 52-27.
Senior MSU forward Matt Costello leads the Spartans with 10 points and eight rebounds at the half, while senior guard Bryn Forbes has 12 points.
Penn State is led by 11 points from sophomore guard Shep Garner and nine points from senior guard Devin Foster.
Both teams got off to a sluggish start. At the 11:30 mark of the first half, MSU was shooting just 5-of-18 from the field while Penn State was held to a modest 3-of-15 shooting. The Spartans led at that point, 11-6.
From there, the Spartans seemingly caught fire, using a 17-3 run during the next three-plus minutes to build a 28-9 lead with 8:19 to go in the first half.
MSU didn't look back from there, and things continued to go south for Penn State. At the 4:53 mark of the first half, Nittany Lion head coach Pat Chambers received two technical fouls and was tossed from the game with his team down, 35-18.
Penn State shot just 10-of-33 from the field in the first half, compared to a 17-of-33 shooting performance by the Spartans.
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