After last week's losses at Temple and St. Joseph's, the women's basketball team has found the remedy it needs -- a trip to New England for two Atlantic 10 contests.

At 7:30 tonight in the Curry Hicks Cage, the Lady Lions (16-5) will tangle with hapless Massachusetts. The Minutewomen are struggling through a 4-18 season and have lost nine of their last 10 games. Then at 2 p.m. Saturday, Penn State will forge its way into Rhode Island to face the WRams (3-19).

The losses in Philadelphia affected the Lady Lions differently. With the Lady Hawks ranked higher in the national polls and playing at home, they were the favorite. Yet the Temple game was a complete surprise, considering the Lady Owls were one game under .500 before the game.

"After Temple no one felt good," forward Lynn Dougherty said. "It was just anger. Against St. Joe's we gave it our all, but didn't get the job done."

The two defeats knocked Penn State out of the Associated Press Top 25 and from the unbeaten ranks of the A-10. The Lady Lions are 10-2 in the conference, while UMass is 1-12.

This week in practice the team has worked on its offensive execution, trying to rediscover its shot after shooting under 30 percent against St. Joseph's. Also, Penn State has worked on protecting the basketball -- it turned the ball over a season-high 28 times against Temple and 19 last Saturday.

"Toward the end of the St. Joseph's game (about five minutes to go)," Dougherty said, "we were only down by 10, but we didn't pressure them or play man-to-man. We weren't in their face until three minutes later and then it was way too late."

If things go as they have in the past, the Lady Lions won't have to worry too much about defense. The Minutewomen have averaged only 57 points in the teams' previous 13 meetings while Penn State's offense has scored 81 points a contest.

"Their depth is still a question," assistant coach Dan Durkin said. "They have played hard here (a 91-58 Minutewomen loss, yet they led for most of the first half) and have been doing some nice things lately.

"These two games, regardless of their records, are key games, mathematically for us to stay in the run (for the conference title) and mentally and physically to rebound from what happened last weekend."

Senior guard Helen Freeman is the Minutewomen's top scorer with 14 points and seven rebounds per outing. Center Keyburn McCusker is contributing 10 points.

Lately the Minutewomen have been showing signs of life. Last Tuesday, the team squeezed a 78-74 win over Harvard. And for several games the team has played in some close contests -- George Washington nipped it 72-71 at the buzzer and A-10 co-leader Rutgers was limited to a 68-55 victory.

"We've been getting more consistent play over a greater amount of time," Massachusetts coach Kathy Hewelt said. "We've had more chemistry and the team has been gelling, but I didn't expect it at this point of the season."

Dougherty added, "We need to big wins to get back on track. There's no way we'll go in and lose."

Notes: Penn State has only lost once to these teams, both on the road -- a 67-63 loss to UMass in 1984 and a 61-57 setback to the WRams in 1988 . . . Forward Susan Robinson needs to average just 10 points in the remaining seven guaranteed games to become the first sophomore in Penn State history to reach 2,000 points by the end of her second year.