Penn State's 38-33 victory over No. 18 Illinois this week marked the ninth time this season a ranked team had scored fewer than 50 points in a game. The only one of those that was a win was Arizona State's 49-38 victory over Oregon State.

Only twice did a ranked team fail to break 40, the Illini's loss to Penn State and their 59-36 loss to Minnesota.

Illinois wasn't the only ranked team to make the under-50 list more than once as Arizona State lost 61-49 to Southern California.

The 71 combined points in Penn State's win over Illinois were the lowest in a Division I game since Monmouth beat Princeton 41-21 in 2005.

Just to put the Penn State-Illinois game in the statistical spotlight it deserves: the Nittany Lions shot 28 percent (13-of-46), just worse than Illinois' 30 percent (15-for-50). It's pretty rare that shooting percentages for both teams added together doesn't break 60. Penn State's Talor Battle had 11 points, the only player on either team to break double figures.

There will be another argument to use in the never- ending discussion of which is the best arena in college basketball.EA Sports, whose video games are almost perfect in showing home courts, down to doors, windows and exit signs, conducted an online vote of more than 100,000 fans to help develop a new feature for next year's edition of its video game, "Toughest Places to Play."The 15 finalists were: UCLA, Syracuse, Duke, Arkansas, Clemson, North Carolina, Kansas, Florida, Pittsburgh, Illinois, Louisville, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas and Xavier.