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WOMEN'S BASKETBALL Fresh start Lady Lions prepare to switch their focus to the upcoming Big Ten schedule Penn State is starting over this season, but not from scratch. Not even close. With Maggie Lucas and Dara Taylor leading the backcourt and Talia East and Ariel Edwards having made the transition from role players to key contributors, the Lady Lions are poised to compete for the Big Ten championship – even with seven freshmen on their roster. It helps that there does not appear to be a dominant team in the Big Ten this season. As of Dec. 10, only four conference teams were ranked in the Associated Press Top 25, and the highest was Penn State at No. 12. We'll begin to find out just how good the Lady Lions are on Jan. 5, when they open their conference season at Iowa. LAST SEASON Penn State won the Big Ten regular-season crown for the second consecutive season, finishing with a 15-2 record (26-6 overall). The only conference teams to defeat them were Wisconsin and Minnesota. However, the Lady Lions failed to hold their seed at the Big Ten tournament, falling to Michigan State, 54-46, in the semifinal round. FAVORITES In only its third year of Big Ten membership, Nebraska appears poised to claim its first regular-season title. The Cornhuskers return four starters from a squad that finished second behind PSU last season and reached the Sweet 16 at NCAAs. They look to have the conference's best frontcourt, with Jordan Hooper and Emily Cady combining to average just over 20 rebounds per game through nine games. Penn State counters with a stellar backcourt featuring Lucas and Taylor, and the freshmen are starting to make an impact, particularly forward Kaliya Mitchell. Michigan State returns senior guard Klarissa Bell and was picked to finish third in preseason polls of the league's coaches and media, while Iowa is paced by league assists leader Samantha Logic. MAGGIE LUCAS BIG TEN PREVIEW D E C E m b E r Penn State Athletic Communications DARK HORSES It was strange to see Purdue missing from the media's preseason list of conference favorites. After all, the Boilermakers return three starters from a team that won the Big Ten tournament last year, including preseason All-Conference guard Courtney Moses. Ohio State was a frequent contender under Jim Foster, but the Hall of Fame coach was ousted following an 18-13 finish last season, and his successor, former Washington and Xavier coach Kevin McGuff, is rebuilding without one of last year's key players, graduated guard Tayler Hill. Indiana won its first nine games, but that stellar record was at least partly the result of a schedule that included Central Arkansas and USC Upstate. But while the Hoosiers probably aren't as good as their record, another quick-starting team – Minnesota – might just be legit. The Gophers have an inside-outside game that looks as though it will create some problems for their Big Ten rivals. It certainly created problems for Miami, which fell at Williams Arena, 74-67, during the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. MVP CANDIDATES Maggie Lucas won this award last year, and she was averaging 1 1 , 2 0 1 3 8 21.3 points per game through Penn State's first eight games. If the Lady Lions repeat, it's likely that Lucas will, too. But she'll have some competition in Nebraska's Hooper, Minnesota's Rachel Banham and possibly another Gopher: freshman center Amanda Zahui. Hooper may be the best all-around player in the conference. Through the Cornhuskers' first nine games, the senior forward was ranked second in the Big Ten in scoring at 21.6 points per game and second in rebounding at 10.8 boards per game. Banham, like Lucas, is a perimeter marksman. Through 10 games, the junior guard was hitting nearly 60 percent of her 3-point attempts to lead the conference. Zahui is a 6-foot-5 redshirt freshman center who played on Sweden's national team for six years before enrolling at Minnesota. She had already won two Big Ten Player of the Week honors as of this writing. PENN STATE'S CHANCES Coquese Washington has said she expects the youthful Lady Lions to begin hitting their stride in January or February. If they intend to vie for their third consecutive Big Ten regularseason title, it had better be the former. The Lady Lions have already gotten big contributions from Mitchell, and fellow freshmen Alex Harris and Peyton Whitted are working their way into the rotation, too. Penn State may have lost by double digits to top-five opponents Connecticut and Notre Dame during the nonconference season, but they did put together second-half rallies against both. And in the game against the Irish, they made their run with Lucas on the bench due to foul trouble. That's an encouraging sign. For a team that aspires to do more than just vie for the league's regular-season crown – a team that will play host to an NCAA subregional March 23-25 – there's no such thing as too much versatility. – MATT HERB b L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O m

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