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WELL-GUARDED Marshall scored 29 points in a 81-72 loss to No. 18 Michigan State on Jan. 16. The Lions have struggled on offense this season. he's got blisters on his hands because he's just squeezing it. We've gotta just relax and let the game come to us a little bit." Though somewhat improved by its most recent defeat, the numbers are troubling for Penn State. In a 81-72 loss to No. 18 Michigan State on Jan. 16, the Nittany Lions shot 48 percent for the game behind 29- and 27-point efforts from Jermaine Marshall and D.J. Newbill, respectively. Against their previous Big Ten opponents, however, the Nittany Lions averaged a meager 54 points per game. Their scoring margin was an incredible minus-15.0 points per game, and, maybe most important, they were making a paltry 36.1 percent of their attempts from the floor. For a variety of reasons – vastly improved competition, a case of bad luck and a talent gap that only widened when standout guard Tim Frazier went down with a seasonending Achilles tendon injury – Chambers has been frank about the improvements that must be made if his Nittany Lions are going to find themselves on the winning end of games through the course of the rest of the season. "It's the Big Ten. I mean, you just jumped up a whole level of talent. These are talented teams. These are quick teams," Chambers said, citing Penn State's struggles against the league's abundance of quick guards and big forwards and centers. "There are some big boys in the lane. So you're rushing your shots, you don't want to get your shot blocked, therefore you're not really keeping your eye on where you want to lay the basketball – just little things like that. Maybe you're not going up strong, maybe you're trying to draw the contact instead of just going up strong and whatever happens, happens. "Try to make the layup first and worry about the contact second. If you do that, you'll make more shots. But we've definitely been sped up. You can see it. We just need to exhale, slow down and play at our pace." It's not that the Nittany Lions aren't trying, or that the shots aren't open, or that the ball isn't falling through the net in practice. In fact, Penn State's circumstances are just the opposite, Chambers said. The final four games of the nonconference schedule in December featured the Nittany Lions' most impressive offensive performances of the season. They earned a few comfortable victories along the way, but January hasn't been nearly as kind. "I wouldn't say [it's] disheartening," Chambers said. "We've gotta continue to get better. We've got young guys out there, freshmen and sophomores out there. But disheartening? I wouldn't say disheartening. We just have to keep at it and keep working and keep getting better and learn from our mistakes and try to slow ourselves down." Though losses to open the month at Wisconsin and to then-No. 5 Indiana at home weren't unexpected, the Nittany Lions also suffered one of the worst defeats of Chambers' season-and-ahalf tenure as head coach – a 70-54 blowout loss to Northwestern on Jan. 10 at the Bryce Jordan Center. In a performance he called embarrassing, the clearly agitated Chambers blamed himself for not having a team that was prepared to play. Then he vowed to do what was necessary to help the Nittany Lions rebound. "We're a feel-good team. We make shots and we play hard. I'm trying to teach them that that shouldn't dictate your effort," he said, explaining the importance of maintaining a defensive effort in the midst of shooting slumps. "It's gotta be a collective effort, and then when you get down on the offensive end, you shoot with confidence. I don't take anybody out for shots. Move the basketball, share the basketball. We have [done that]. "I'm not changing anything," he added. "We got good post-ups, we got good layups, we got good 15-footers, got some good 3s. We got the right matchups. We've gotta be able to take advantage of those mismatches. On the road, it's always been a challenge for us during my short tenure here. That's gotta change. We've got a couple of home games coming here and hopefully we'll

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