Adam Rittenberg is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected].

Throughout the Big Ten season, Northwestern players and coaches have repeatedly attributed the team’s losses to one irreversible factor – size. The Wildcats have been swatted, blocked, stuffed and rejected in the paint by nearly every opponent, and could only cite their lack of big bodies as an explanation.

On Wednesday night, we found out why.

Facing a Penn State squad that is far from an army of giants, NU was able to drive, dish and rebound on the inside. The Nittany Lions’ tallest starters were 6-foot-8 forwards Gyasi Cline-Heard and Tyler Smith, allowing the Cats to finally see eye-to-eye with their opponents and pull out a dramatic 62-61 win.

On the game’s first play, NU center Tavaras Hardy hinted that this matchup might be different. Hardy won a sloppy opening tip, raced down floor and caught Ben Johnson’s dish in the lane, laying the ball in over Cline-Heard. From that point, Hardy was a beast, penetrating the paint with ease and grabbing boards over Penn State’s post players.

When the dust cleared, Hardy had racked up a season-high 23 points and snatched nine rebounds, earning high praise from dejected Lions coach Jerry Dunn.

“Our interior defense was very, very soft, and the Northwestern players played like men down there,” Dunn muttered. “Tavaras Hardy did anything he wanted to in the post.”

Come again?

But Dunn was right. Hardy played with a fire that had been extinguished since last February, when he scored a career-high 25 points in the Cats’ overtime loss to Michigan.

“We know that with teams who have centers or power forwards closer to my height, it’s a better matchup for me, not going against guys that are 7 feet,” Hardy said. “We saw that I could get a couple baskets inside.”

Coach Bill Carmody even admitted Hardy was his No. 1 option on NU’s final possession, but the center was blanketed by Lions and instead screened for guard Jitim Young, who waltzed down the lane for the game-winning layup.

With defenders flocking to Hardy, the 6-foot-2 Young drove for layups and camped under the hoop for rebounds all night. Young’s willingness to mix it up down low is nothing new, but the redwoods that had been blocking his path just weren’t there.

“My eyes just opened up the whole game every time I saw a one-on-one situation and I saw how open the lane was,” Young said. “That was just an opportunity for me to get to the basket and create something.”

“He’s a true power forward, that guy,” added Carmody.

And for once, the Cats did not put up an ungodly number of three-pointers, opting wisely to drive the lane or dump it down to Hardy. For once, NU stuck with its backdoor passing, picking up 19 assists. For once, the force field enclosing the paint collapsed, and Cats players roamed the lane like 7-year-olds at Disney World.

While Hardy and Young dominated, Dunn refused to counter with his two 7-footers, Scott Witkowsky and Jarad Houston. Penn State’s interior defense was left for Cline-Heard – a superb dunker but spotty defender – and Smith, a Dolph Lundgren lookalike who let Young dribble by for the game-winner.

NU outscored Penn State 38-24 in the paint and 12-9 in second-chance points. But the best evidence of the Cats’ dominance appeared on the postgame stat sheet, under team rebounds – they held a 32-31 edge.

The Cats now stand at 10-17, and if there were regulations on player size, that mark might be reversed.

Too bad the Big Ten doesn’t play by those rules.