STATE COLLEGE - A promising season for Penn State willl end without the NCAA tournament.

The Nittany Lions (22-11) were snubbed from the NCAAs despite notching the second-best season win total in program history. They were tied for fourth in the Big Ten at 10-8, their best conference record in 13 seasons.

But Penn State fell to Purdue in the second round of the conference tournament. It also was hurt by a relatively weak nonconference schedule and several upsets in other conference tournaments, which reduced the number of at-large openings for bubble teams.

The Nittany Lions' consolation prize is a No. 2 seed in the NIT tournament and a first-round date Tuesday at home against George Mason.

Still, the NCAA snub stings in Happy Valley, especially after seven other Big Ten teams made the NCAAs.

"We're very, very disappointed, but coming into this thing I thought it was going to be real hard to get eight teams into the tournament, and I thought we needed one more win," coach Ed DeChellis said.

A double-overtime loss to Iowa, the 10th-place team in the Big Ten, in their regular-season finale also hurt the Nittany Lions' resume.

Penn State did have four wins over Top 25 teams, including a road victory at Michigan State and a season sweep of Illinois, along with six victories over Top 50 RPI teams.

Coming into the Big Ten tournament, Penn State had the second-worst RPI (63) of the Big Ten bubble teams.