An ice pack strapped to his right knee, Jermaine Marshall slowly walked down the Jordan Center corridor back to the Penn State locker room after a tough loss to end the regular season.
Trailing by 19 points with 9 minutes left, Marshall's scrappy play helped the Nittany Lions fight back and get within four with 2:38 to go against No. 13 Michigan before losing 71-65 on Sunday.
Trey Burke scored 19 points and Michigan shot 59 percent from the field to keep its hopes for a share of the Big Ten title alive, while the Nittany Lions closed the regular season with four straight losses.
Evan Smotrycz added 17 points, but the Wolverines (23-8, 13-5) had to wait until the No. 10 Ohio State beat No. 5 Michigan State 72-70 later Sunday to secure part of the crown, Michigan's first since 1986. The schools finished in a three-way tie for first place.
Marshall had a career-high 27 points and eight rebounds for Penn State (12-19, 4-14), including a dunk that riled up the Jordan Center crowd and a layup to close that 19-point deficit to 62-58.
''It's very easy when you're in the situation like we were in to mail it in,'' Penn State coach Patrick Chambers said. ''As disappointed as I am, I'm excited about'' the late comeback.
But the Nittany Lions couldn't overcome Michigan's 70 percent shooting in the first half, including making eight straight field goals during a 23-4 run. The Wolverines held Penn State without a field goal for nearly 10 minutes during the run.
''We can't let missing shots dictate our effort,'' Chambers said about the first half. ''That's exactly what you saw from some of our guys.''
Ross Travis added 15 points for the Nittany Lions, who will play No. 18 Indiana in the first round of the Big Ten tournament which starts this week in Indianapolis.
Michigan entered Sunday having already secured a first-round bye in the conference tournament, and the victory allowed the Wolverines to clinch the No. 2 seed.
But coach John Beilein's club had the shooting touch of a team still in contention for a share of the regular season title.
Tim Frazier, who finished with 11 points, spent much of the first half on the bench with two fouls, leaving the Penn State offense floundering without its lead guard.
But Frazier's aggressive play and Marshall's big game helped the Nittany Lions narrow several double-digit deficits, including 56-37 with 9:04 left.
Keep fighting, Marshall implored his team.
''We gathered as a group and said we're not going to give up,'' Marshall said. ''Coach kept preaching, `Show some heart, show some heart.' I think we did that pretty well.''
It included an entertaining second-half stretch in which Michigan's Burke and Penn State's Trey Lewis each traded 4-point plays after getting fouled on made 3-pointers.
Marshall's layup cut the deficit to four points and the teams traded misses before Burke went baseline for a layup to get the lead back to 64-58 with 1:24 left.
Penn State outrebounded Michigan 31-23, but poor shooting left their fans quiet for long stretches of the first half, with Chambers' pleading voice and urgent clapping the loudest noises in the arena.
Marshall's play riled up the crowd, including a dunk after driving through the Michigan defense to get within 10 points, and the sophomore shooting guard kept Penn State in it with leading scorer Frazier having an off day with 4-of-16 shooting.
Burke, Michigan's quick, cool freshman, scored six points over the final 1:24 to keep the Nittany Lions at bay.
Smotrycz led the Wolverines with 12 points in the hot-shooting first half, when Michigan hit 7 of 10 from behind the 3-point arc.
