Carr sparks PSU to victory

With the game on the line and quite possibly a trip to the NCAA tournament, Tony Carr didn’t hesitate to put Penn State on his back.

Carr scored 25 points and hit two 3-pointers and set up another in the final minutes as the seventh-seeded Nittany Lions made a late rush to hold off Northwestern 65-57 in the second round of the Big Ten Conference tournament Thursday night at Madison Square Garden.

“He was huge down the stretch of the game,” fellow guard Shep Garner. “Big play after big play after big play. And that’s what he does for this team. He makes big plays on the offensive end. We’re kind of used to it at this point. We don’t take it for granted, but we’re kind of used to it at this point.”

Penn State (20-12) broke its school record for a Big Ten tournament game by hitting 13 three-pointers in snapping a three-game losing streak and setting up a quarterfinal game Friday against No. 13 and second-seeded Ohio State.

The Nittany Lions, who posted their first 20-win season since 2008-09, beat the Buckeyes twice in the regular season.

Beating banged up Northwestern (15-17) wasn’t easy. The Wildcats hung tough most of the game and didn’t falter until the end when Penn State scored 13 straight points.

“We defended and rebounded when we had to for most of the game,” Penn State coach Patrick Chambers said. “But really at the end, the last four minutes when we went on that run, just everybody really buckled down and got some stops there.”

Carr hit a go-ahead 3pointer with 4:06 to play to give Penn State a 55-54 lead and ignite the game deciding run. He later set up a 3pointer by Josh Reaves that expanded the lead to 58-54 with 3:03 to go and he followed with his sixth 3-pointer a minute later for a sevenpoint lead.

“They went to some of their favorite action and just got him in ball screens,” Northwestern guard Bryant McIntosh said of Carr. “And he obviously knew it was winning time, and he stepped up and got aggressive offensively and was just looking to make plays. To his credit, he did.”

Dererk Pardon had 14 points for Northwestern.

Women

Michigan 77, Penn State: 48: Teniya Page, who scored 38 points in the Big Ten tournament opener against Illinois, was held to just 12 and the Nittany Lions (16-15) fell to the Wolverines (22-8) at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.