Blue White Illustrated

Penn State ran into some pretty big potholes during a series of Big Ten road trips in late January and early February. Heading into a Feb. 14 home game against Northwestern, the Lady Lions had lost four of :ve, dropping their record to 14-12 overall and 5-8 in the Big Ten. Penn State's lone victory during that 15-day span was a 74-59 romp over Michigan State on Feb. 4 at the Bryce Jordan Center. Of the four losses, only one – an 80-76 setback at Iowa – was by single digits. The Lady Lions fell by 15 at Purdue, 30 at Ohio State and 33 at Minnesota. The Michigan State game was one of only three home games during the last :ve weeks of the regular season, and Penn State took advantage of it. The Lady Lions went into the game looking to run on the taller, slower Spartans, and they succeeded, scoring 14 fast- break points to Michigan State's three. "We de:nitely wanted to use our speed to our advantage," coach Co- quese Washington said. "Either size is going to win or speed is going to win. That's what we talked about this week. We de:nitely couldn't outsize them, so we had to outrun them, and we really emphasized that. I thought the team did a really good job at executing that part of the game." But when they returned to the road four days later, it was just as unkind as before. In the matchup with Iowa, the Lady Lions started slow and trailed by 15 at hal;ime. They surged back a;er the break, but the de:cit proved too much to overcome, as the Hawkeyes held on a;er Penn State had cut their lead to two points on a 3-pointer by Teniya Page with 35 seconds to play. In a 101-68 loss to the Gophers three days later, the Lady Lions again fell be- hind early, and this time they weren't able to rally. They trailed by 15 at the end of the :rst quarter and then scored only eight points in the second, as Min- nesota sprinted to a 55-26 hal;ime lead. Page :nished with 22 points on 8-of- 16 shooting and added four assists and three steals, but it wasn't enough, as :ve Gophers players scored in doubles. As a team, Minnesota shot 47.2 percent to Penn State's 29.7 and outrebounded the Lady Lions 53-34. The latter number was indicative of a larger trend for Penn State. Through 26 games, the Lady Lions were last in the Big Ten in rebound margin at minus- 2.6 per game. Penn State's leading re- bounder was junior forward De'Janae Boykin with an average of 8.2 per game. Only one other PSU player – fellow junior Jaylen Williams – was averaging more than four. With three games remaining in its regular season, Penn State was tied with the Spartans for 10th place in the league standings. The Lady Lions were one game behind Rutgers and two be- hind Indiana, so there was still a chance to improve their seed heading into the Big Ten tournament. There appeared to be little danger that they would slip below the 11th seed, as the three teams behind them – Northwestern, Wisconsin and Illinois – had totaled four Big Ten wins be- tween them to that point in the season. But if they do settle for the 11th seed, they'll be playing a :rst-round game on the tournament's opening night. The Big Ten tournament is set for Feb. 28-March 4 at Indianapolis. A;er three one-and-done outings the past four years, the Lady Lions are eager to change their luck this season. –MATT HERB WOMEN'S BASKETBALL Road unkind to Lady Lions during February swoon taken note as their fiery head coach has worked to relax. Senior shooting guard Shep Garner de- scribed Chambers as being "free" with the team's leadership, allowing auton- omy in areas off the floor that had previ- ously been managed. Feel-good music blares in the team's locker room before games, and some of the rules regarding individual choices in attire have been slightly relaxed. Those changes have contributed to the atmosphere of posi- tivity. "I think this is definitely the most that he's done that in my four years," Garner said. "It just makes it more fun, just little things. It's not really that big of a deal, but just little things that the players might want or to change a little bit here and there. Coach Chambers has done an un- believable job with us." The players, in turn, have responded, all to Chambers' delight. He's confident that the Nittany Lions can and will compete at a high level re- gardless of their opponent's pedigree, and he's eager to see the hard work and teach- ing that took place through the summer months, preseason and each day in prac- tice manifest itself in games. Chambers has even gone so far as to hand over some of the in-game control to sophomore point guard Tony Carr and has taken great pride in relenting. "To be able to give the keys to the pro- gram to these guys really makes you proud. And that's what you enjoy," Chambers said. "Why do you do this? You do this because you're seeing Shep be- come a man. You're seeing Tony Carr… battle through adversity and play one of the best games of his career. You're seeing Lamar [Stevens] step up, Mike [Watkins] step up. It's enjoyable to watch, and I'm appreciating it for sure." ■

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