The first half of the men's basketball season could have been named "The Great American Independent Road Trip."

But with just nine games remaining in the regular season, the team can finally unpack those suitcases.

Monday night's 70-52 win over Toledo began a three-game homestand for the Lions. In the final stretch of the season, the team plays six of its final nine games at the friendly confines of Rec Hall.

The Lions have only been tested once at home this season -- in a 51-48 win over Bowling Green on Dec. 14. Penn State is 6-0 at home, and other than squeaking by the Falcons, the team has won by an average of more than 26 points.

"We obviously play better at home," Coach Bruce Parkhill said.

But Penn State's toughest home games are still to come. On Feb. 3 former Atlantic 10 foe Duquesne visits and the Feb. 12 rematch with Butler will be a difficult task.

Twice the team has returned home with a two-game losing streak, and both times it proceeded to pummel the opposition at Rec Hall. Monday's win was the latest case where the Lions rebounded from a controversial overtime loss.

After the Jan. 8 James Madison fiasco, the Lions erupted with a season-high 102 points over lowly Morgan State. Monday night, the team followed two dismal defensive and free-throw shooting performances by shutting down the Rockets' leading scorer, J.C. Harris, and making 18-of-25 from the line.

Other notes from Monday's game:

-- The Toledo win continued the streak of Monroe Brown and Freddie Barnes never losing three games in a row when they start.

-- Parkhill was pleased with the fast break offense the Lions ran against Toledo. A smile came to his face when he talked about the fancy moves Barnes makes when leading the break.

"He does that all the time," Parkhill said. "I'm just glad to see him push the ball more."

-- One of Parkhill's concerns has been the softening of Penn State's defense once the team gets a lead. The Lions had a 12-point advantage with 4:22 left in the first half. Parkhill called a time out two minutes later when the lead was cut to seven. The team responded by scoring the final four points of the half that put the margin back to 11.

-- Jon Dietz may be slowly coming out of his funk. Parkhill said Dietz played harder in practice last week. The junior, who has been relegated to the bench for most of the season, entered the last two games early in the first half but didn't score.

-- It was an interesting night for Brown. Offensively, he hit 5-of-7 field goals and went a perfect 3-of-3 from 3-point land. Defensively, Scott Riley, the man he guarded, was the games leading scorer with 19 points.

Brown said after the game, "(Riley) was running off picks from everybody. Freddie and I would switch on him but we had to keep somebody down on the big men."