During her high school career in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Kathy Phillips received some criticism about her game that apparantly had an immediate effect.

While playing a game against rival Utica in her sophomore year, Phillips took a last-second shot that clanged off the rim and resulted in a loss for Phillips' team. The next day, someone described Phillips to the local paper as a player with "a weak outside shot."

After reading that remark, the 6-foot-3-inch center decided to do something about that and her reaction has created the player who finished her senior year at Penn State scoring over 13 points a game on 53 percent shooting.

And in case that critic was interested, a number of those shots came from the top of the key.

"It helped me out a lot to add another dimension to my game with perimeter shooting," Phillips said. "And then I came up here (Penn State) and they give the green light to shoot. . . . If I'm wide open I know I have the range."

That confidence is something that has been building in Phillips since that comment six years ago and no one has benefitted more than Coach Rene Portland and her squad. Since Phillips' arrival, the Lady Lions have gone 14-14, 25-7, and 29-2. This year, Penn State finished the regular season at 23-6 and on Saturday will make its third consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament.

"She certainly had the correct attitude, she certainly had the quickness that I was looking for," Portland said. "There were just a lot of positives about her."

While many have grown accustomed to what Phillips has accomplished, one person has been amazed at her progress and that's Mary Cicerone, Phillips' coach at Marian High School.

Two years ago, Cicerone came to watch a game at Penn State and declared to Portland that she never thought that Phillips would become an offensive threat. Indeed, Phillips has increased her scoring average every year from 6.6 points per game as a freshman to an average of 13.4 points this season.

"I really couldn't put a finger on why she wasn't an offensive threat," Cicerone said. "Maybe she wasn't offensive-minded because she really liked to play defense -- but I know she is now. She was our second-leading scorer at Marian but she's not one of those that you think of as an offensive player."

The other change that Cicerone noticed in Phillips was her dedication to the game. In high school, Phillips was described as a player who would work on her game during practice but never outside of that because she was involved with clubs and other social activities.

She said that Phillips also stopped playing once basketball season ended, that it wasn't a year-round activity for her.

"Once basketball season stopped, she stopped," Cicerone said. "But that was just Kathy's personality."

But in her four years as a Lady Lion, Phillips has yet to stop playing ball and trying to improve her game. Introduced as evidence is the final regular season game two weeks ago.

Cicerone got another look at Phillips this year, as Portland kept a recruiting promise she made to Phillips' parents -- that Penn State would come to play Michigan in front of her family and friends.

True to her word, the coach took the Lady Lions to Ann Arbor over Spring Break for a game against the Wolverines, and Cicerone got to see the final product of all those years of shooting. In that game, Phillips planted her flag in Crisler Arena and declared her homecoming as she led all scorers with 15 and pulled down 10 rebounds.

Phillips' perimeter game also doesn't just help the Lady Lions on the court -- other players semi-seriously use it as an inspiration.

For example, while backup center Tina Henry is more than content to use her eight-foot hook shot as her main offensive weapon, it still doesn't stop her from taking extra shooting practice in Rec Hall. Every now and then you can see Henry taking some long-long-range jumpers from 3-point land, but denies any dreams of 20-footers.

"Kathy was given the green light," Henry explained. "I'm still between the red and yellow light."

While Henry may not have acquired Phillips' jumper, that quip shows that she may have leeched off a little of the senior's sense of humor.

Phillips is described by her teammates as the prankster and the team clown. She's the one who will most likely switch locks on your locker or pull your shorts down in the middle of practice.

"A lot of times people get real tight and it affects their game -- shooting, defense, whatever," Phillips said. "I like to keep things a little bit loose. You don't really think too much about what you're doing, just go do it and have fun with what you're doing, that's why you're here."

Portland is happy that she has a player as loose as Phillips and appreciates her humorous escapades.

"The thing about Kathy is that she knows the time and the place for those things," Portland said. "I can't think of a time when it hasn't been at the right time. It's all been healthy and a nice release."

The butt of many of Phillips' pranks and shorts pullings has been redshirt freshman Missy Masley, who has been tagged as the jester-in-waiting.

"When you mess up a joke she's the best one at making it a joke because you screw up something," Masley said.

Masley recalls the time she put vinegar in Phillip's water bottle and it got knocked over and everyone could smell what was going on. Masley thought the joke was ruined but when she took a sip from her own bottle she discovered that Phillips had switched bottletops and it was Masley who got the bitter taste of a practical joke.

And while her offense keeps the Lady Lions in close games, it's Phillips' wit that keeps things loose during practice. In fact, the only thing that is tight then are the drawstrings of her teammates' shorts.