Women's Basketball Coach Rene Portland is happy to be seeing some familiar faces now that her 10-4 squad has returned to State College for a four-game homestand.

"I think the biggest change will be in the quality of practice time," Portland said. "Three of the four facilities that we went into, we had to wet-mop the floor before we started and that cut into our practice time."

Being on the road for so long meant lower-quality facilities for the Lady Lions to use and as much as a half-hour less of practice than normal. There was also a cutback of what Portland calls "individual help," a program in which players work individually with coaches three times a week on various aspects of the game.

"We will not have those problems here. We will get the quality of two hours," Portland said. "Our preparation won't change -- we're certainly anxious to see DePaul."

Tomorrow night's game against the Blue Demons will be the first of three games in five days for No. 8 Penn State. On Sunday, Big Ten rival Illinois comes in to complete the teams' home-and-away series and on Tuesday, the Lady Lions are visited by Niagra.

The DePaul game will be the first game in Rec Hall since the 82-55 victory over Michigan State four weeks ago. But because students were on break then, the last game they'll remember would be the 85-58 blowout loss to Maryland.

Portland certainly remembers that loss.

"If you came up to my desk, even today, you will see the headline --'Blown Out at Home.' "

December's Big Ten/SEC Challenge, in which defending national champion Tennessee beat the Lady Lions by a point, was the last in the two-year series. The SEC teams went 4-0 and the conference is anxious to open up negotiations for a new tournament.

However, that tournament may not include the Big Ten.

Graham Edwards, assistant director of the SEC, said there are ongoing talks with the conference about a renewal of the series, but the Big Ten apparently isn't aware of this.

Phyllis Howlett, assistant commissioner of the Big Ten, said she's clueless as far as a continuation of the Challenge. "If there is anything going on I haven't heard about it -- and I would be the person to hear about it," she said.

The Penn State-Tennessee game drew a 1.9 rating on CBS while competing against NFL playoff games on NBC.

The coming of the new year has brought some sensitive as well as humorous resolutions from the Lady Lions for 1992:

Jackie Donovan said that she wants to be a friendlier person and doesn't want to get so caught up in her own problems that she forgets there are people less fortunate than herself.

Helen Holloway has decided she will stop telling her teammates to shut up. Updates to follow.

But Carla Coleman has gone the farthest when she declares her resolution as, "Not to say 'uhh' when I'm ordering food."