Penn State's Tim Frazier a handful for Iowa's defense

IOWA CITY - Penn State guard Tim Frazier's impact wasn't exactly a surprise coming into the season, but nobody expected these types of numbers.

Frazier, a junior, is on pace to become the only Penn State player to finish in the Big Ten's top 10 for points, assists and steals in the same season. Entering Saturday's game, Frazier ranks third in the Big Ten in scoring with 19.2 points a game, leads the league in assists at 5.3 and ranks third in steals (2.1)

"He does everything well," Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. "He's leading in scoring, he's leading in (assists).  He gets to the free-throw line. He finds his teammates. He plays defense. He's got an amazing ability to sustain it for a lot of minutes with everybody going after him.

"He's having as good a year as anybody in our league."

Frazier averaged 6.3 points a game last year and 5.0 as a freshman in 2009-10. His 11.7 point-per-game improvement is the Big Ten's best since 1996-97. He's one of three players nationally to average at least 17 points and six assists a game.

"He's phenomenally talented at getting in the lane, whether it is with ball screens or without," McCaffery said. "He can seemingly get in there anytime he wants.

"He's shooting the ball much better than he did last year. His pull-up jumper, his floater is really good. His 3 is solid, good enough to set up everything else."

Frazier is similar to last year's do-it-all player Talor Battle, Penn State's all-time leading scorer. Battle scored 20.2 points a game last year and owns the Big Ten record for minutes played in a career.

"They both have ultimate green lights," Iowa senior Matt Gatens said. "They're really aggressive, and guys like that can be difficult to guard because they're going to get their shots up.

"Coach has said in the past guarding guys like that, we're going to let them go 12-for-20 or 5-for-20. It's a big difference. You've got to keep them shooting difficult shots and limit their impact on the game."