When Missy Masley scored on a layup with 3:08 left in the second half, Coach Rene Portland had the warm glow she always has when all of her Lady Lions get on the scoreboard.

But the true theme of the women's basketball team's 81-37 victory over Temple last night at Rec Hall was the way it's defense dismantled the Lady Owls (7-14). Portland was extremely pleased that the Lady Lions (16-6) were able to put all aspects of their game together.

"We have been playing very, very good defense in the latter part of the season," Portland said. "Even at the Rutgers game we played very good defense -- we just didn't get our offense going. Tonight was the first time you saw our defense translate into some offense."

Penn State allowed a season-low 13 points in the first half and held the Lady Owls to 15-of-53 shooting for the game.

Coach Charlene Curtis said that Penn State's constant switching kept her squad off balance and out of sync as it's shot selection was less than desirable. The Lady Lions employed a match-up zone which quickly changed to a man-to-man and Temple was unable to read those changes.

"Penn State was very active on defense -- they did a good job of changing up their defenses," Curtis said. "Very seldom did we even take shots where we wanted to take them from."

Curtis commended Penn State on its scouting of the Lady Owls' shot selection. Temple's best shooters, like forward Roxey Hildebrand, were forced out of their rhythm.

"Even Roxey Hildebrand, who had shot the ball well recently, was actually forced to take shots a step further out," Curtis said.

In the last meeting between the two teams, Hildebrand scored 14 points on 7-of-15 shooting. Last night, Hildebrand went 1-for-7.

The poor shooting by Temple was compounded by the fact that Penn State outrebounded the Lady Owls, 51-29. When Temple could manage an offensive board, it frequently would miss the second shot.

At that point, board crashers like Masley would take over. In just 10 minutes, the redshirt freshman led the team with eight rebounds and tossed in seven points. In total, 11 of 13 Lady Lions had at least one rebound.

Coming into the game Portland wanted to focus on shutting down the play of Temple's guards -- Chantel Adkins and Dallese Jackson. It appears that she succeeded as the two went 5-for-17 and backup Nikki Inzano went 0-for-4. The Lady Owls received only 17 points out of their guard spots.

Carla Coleman's assignment was to cover Adkins and Coleman knew what she was in store for -- Adkins came into the game with 30 three-pointers

"I knew going in that Adkins was a shooter," Coleman said. "That's the thing that we concentrate around -- knowing the shooters. I think that was the key for us in this game."

Portland was more than pleased with the way her Lady Lions accepted and executed their assignments but in the end had a hard time realizing the magnitude of their success defensively.

"If you're going to ask me, 'Did I expect this tonight?' no, I did not expect this tonight," Portland said. "I didn't expect this at all."