NATIONAL INVITATION TOURNAMENT : Penn St., Vanderbilt in Semifinals

Freshman DeRon Hayes scored four of his 16 points in the final minutes Wednesday night and Penn State reached the semifinals of the National Invitation Tournament by getting past Rutgers, 58-55, at Piscataway, N.J.

“Penn State has never been there,” Coach Bruce Parkhill said. “I’ve never been to Madison Square Garden. I don’t think many of our team members have been there, either.”

Penn State (24-8) had an 11-point lead early in the game, but fell behind, 41-33, with 13:45 left.

However, the Nittany Lions rallied and took the lead for good, 52-51, on Hayes’ two free throws with 4:41 left. Monroe Brown followed with a layup, and after Mike Jones made a free throw for Rutgers (18-17), Hayes made a layup to make it 56-52 with 1:40 left.

Rutgers got close on a three-pointer by Earl Duncan with 1:16 left but didn’t score again.

James Barnes added two free throws for Penn State with six seconds left, Mike Jones of Rutgers missed a three-pointer at the buzzer.

Vanderbilt 88, New Orleans 65--Eric Reid scored 19 points as the Commodores routed the Privateers at Nashville, Tenn., in another quarterfinal game.

Scott Draud also scored 19 points for Vanderbilt (19-14).

Tank Collins had 20 points for New Orleans (21-11).