BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WISH) — It was once again a tale of two halves for the Indiana Hoosiers men’s basketball team.

Fresh off a close win against Iowa Tuesday, the Hoosiers attempted to start stacking wins — pivotal to keep dreams of playing in the NCAA Tournament alive after dropping three straight to Top 15 teams last week. Those dreams are a bit murkier after IU allowed an 11-point first half lead to fade away to the Penn State Nittany Lions on Saturday, losing 85-71.

“I just thought the second half, we were so flat coming out. I mean, something I hadn’t seen,” Hoosiers head coach Mike Woodson said. “I look at (Penn State’s) first possession to start the second half, they got like three or four cracks at it. We couldn’t come up with loose balls or rebounds. It was like we were step slow. It’s kind of disappointing because you play a good game against Iowa and then come back and basically lay an egg.”

The Hoosiers came out of the gate strong. The return of sophomore forward Malik Reneau — who left Tuesday’s Iowa game with a lower body injury — was a big boost to the Hoosiers on both sides of the court. Reneau had nine points in the first half. Pair that with sophomore center Kel’el Ware’s 17 points and 7 rebounds, the Hoosiers were looking pretty good at halftime.

However, the problems that were annoyances in the first half became Achilles heels in the second. IU failed to defend the perimeter and looked discombobulated defensively.

The Nittany Lions came into Assembly as one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the Big Ten, averaging just over seven triples a game and a measly 30.5 percent.

That wasn’t the case in Bloomington.

The Hoosiers allowed Penn State to have their best shooting day of the season from distance — 12 made after shooting 54.5 percent from range. The Nittany Lions ability to make what felt like nearly everything from beyond the arc was the difference maker down the stretch.

“To shoot that well, obviously we’re not making impact on them enough,” senior guard Trey Galloway said. “They had a lot of open shots. It goes back to our miscues the things we weren’t doing, talking enough. We have to be better.”

The IU faithful watched their double-digit lead vanish after a 22-5 Penn State run early in the second half. That gave the Nittany Lions a 13-point lead, and they never gave it back.

Penn State outscored IU 48-30 in the second half.

Woodson was disappointed with the energy and effort he saw from his team against the Nittany Lions.

“Sure, I want more fire,” Woodson said. “Yes, I want more fire from the guys. They didn’t fight tonight in the second half, and that was kind of disappointing. We have to go back to work and see if we can work our way back, because that was a game that I thought if we played well, we’d had a legitimate chance to win. I thought we did play well early on, but then just had too much slippage defensively in the second half.”

The loss overshadows another double-double effort from Ware. The sophomore finished with 25 points and 11 boards. Ware continues to have the third-most double-doubles in the Big Ten, behind Purdue’s Zach Edey (15) and Maryland’s Julian Reese (10).

Indiana heads to Ohio State Tuesday. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.