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Flowers' career high leads Wisconsin past undermanned Penn St.

Jan 16, 2008 - 6:19 AM STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania (Ticker) -- Without its leading scorer and rebounder, Penn State fell behind early and could not slow down Michael Flowers and Wisconsin.

Flowers had a career-high 23 points to go with six rebounds and five assists as No. 17 Wisconsin trounced undermanned Penn State, 80-55, in a Big Ten Conference matchup on Tuesday.

Marcus Landry added 16 points and Joe Krabbenhoft chipped in 12 for the Badgers (14-2, 4-0 Big Ten), who shot 60 percent (31-of-52) from the field, cruising to their seventh straight win against the Nittany Lions and eighth win in a row overall.

Wisconsin jumped out to an 18-2 lead in the first 8:09 of the contest as Penn State was dealt a big blow to its offense.

Senior Geary Claxton, who is averaging 18.7 points and 8.9 rebounds, left the game after approximately seven minutes with what is being diagnosed as a torn ACL in his left knee.

Claxton came down awkwardly after attempting a fallaway jumper and did not return to the contest. An MRI is scheduled for Wednesday to confirm the extent of the injury.

"The full extent of the injury cannot be fully determined yet," Penn State director of athletic medicine Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli said. "He clearly has an injury to the ACL and what we need to see is if there are any secondary injuries like damage to the meniscus or cartilage.

"From all the physical testing, it looks like he has a tear to the ACL. Most of the time (with an injury like this), you are looking at six months to get back to training hard, and then anywhere from 3-6 months of game preparation."

The Badgers took its biggest lead of the first half with an 11-0 spurt - capped by Jason Bohannon's 3-pointer - to take a 33-13 advantage with 6:20 left in the half.

After leading by 16 points at the break, Wisconsin's lead was trimmed to 11 less than two minutes into the second half. The Badgers then built their cushion back up to 17 before Penn State came back and cut it to 58-46 on a 3-pointer by Mike Walker with 11:49 remaining.

However, Wisconsin exploded and ended any hopes Penn State had of a comeback, scoring 19 straight points over a seven-minute stretch to take its largest lead at 77-46 with under four minutes left to play. Flowers and Greg Stiemsma each had six points during the run.

Flowers shot 9-of-12 from the field, including 5-of-6 from the arc, en route to his first 20-point game of the season.

The Badgers also outrebounded the Nittany Lions, 41-22, and outscored them 34-18 in the paint.

Jamelle Cornley had 13 points to lead Penn State (10-6, 2-2), which has lost two straight after a seven-game winning streak.

Without Claxton, Penn State shot just 37 percent (22-of-60) from the field, including 6-of-24 from the arc.

"We've got to figure out what our next move is and regroup as a team," Penn State coach Ed DeChellis said. "We need to get back to work and figure out what we are going to do."