8. Hoosiers beat top-ten Penn State 68-60
Indiana hosted Penn State after finally win a road Big Ten game at Minnesota. The problem was the Nittany Lions were playing some of their best basketball of the season and ranked in the top-ten for the first time in decades.
The Hoosiers had also lost to the Nittany Lions earlier in the year by 15 when they only scored 49 points. Even with the game in Bloomington, Indiana was still an underdog coming into the game. But the Hoosiers were highly motivated to pick up another huge win after starting to look like they were on the wrong side of the bubble for the NCAA tournament.
In typical Hoosier fashion, they jumped out to a huge lead in the first half. They built a 19 point lead over the Nittany Lions with 2:20 left in the opening half. The Hoosiers, though, would give up 18 straight points to end the half and start the second half to let Penn State get all the way back into the game.
Penn State’s run finally ended with them leading by six points with just over 12 minutes to play. Indiana would hold the Nittany Lions scoreless for about five minutes to take control back. They wouldn’t trail again and pulled away to get a big 68-60 resume-building win.