Missy Masley was laid out on the floor of the biology lab. She and the other students in her class were dissecting live frogs, but Masley passed out right after they cut off the unlucky amphibian's head.

"When the frog's eyes stayed open and kept blinking 18 inches from the frog's body," Lady Lion coach Rene Portland said in an outburst of laughter. "Missy hit the dirt."

Portland has been able to smile a lot lately, partly because her recent fortunes have been better than that fateful frog's. Her team has bounced completely back from injuries that nearly decapitated it earlier this season, as the 58-55 win yesterday over Wisconsin leapfrogged the Lady Lions to the top spot in the conference.

The main reasons for the Lady Lion resuscitation? Tina Nicholson and Carla Coleman. Guard play wins basketball games, plain and simple. And the play of Nicholson and Coleman this season has brought Penn State from the dregs of the conference to the penthouse.

A Jan. 6 loss to Minnesota put the Lady Lions in a tie for seventh place in the Big Ten. Coleman, a fifth-year senior who leads with her actions on the floor more than with her words, became unusually vocal in the postgame locker-room meeting.

"She very calmly sat down and explained the tradition of Lady Lion basketball, the pride," Portland said. "She assumed a lot of accountabilty for the team from that moment on."

A brilliant sequence of events in the closing minutes of yesterday's game showed Coleman's meaning to her team, leading by example rather than verbosity.

A Katie Voigt three-pointer put Wisconsin up 53-50 with just 3:48 to play. The Badgers carried the momentum from that shot to the defensive end, nearly forcing a turnover and running the 35-second clock to single digits. But as the shot clock dwindled, Coleman flashed through the lane and drilled a stumbling jumper that pulled Penn State to within one.

Wisconsin inbounded the ball, and Coleman promptly picked the pocket of Badger point guard Keisha Anderson, drove for a layup, giving the Lady Lions a lead they would not relinquish.

"Carla Coleman refused to let things get away," Portland said. "She just refuses to let us lose."

The same could have been said for Nicholson. The game yesterday was a showcase of the Big Ten's two best point guards: Nicholson and Anderson. In the end, it was Nicholson leaping into the arms of her coach, solidifying herself as the best point guard in the conference, and Anderson standing in disappointment.

Anderson looked to be outplaying Nicholson during the game. Bone-thin and laser-quick, the 5-foot-7-inch junior would go on tangents of flashy dribbling and deft passing, amidst "oooo's" and "aahh's" from the Rec Hall faithful.

But "oooo's" and "aahh's" don't win basketball games. Nicholson walked off the floor with a "W," and a peek at the stat page shows how looks can be deceiving. Nicholson outplayed Anderson, with 17 points, four assists and five steals, compared to Anderson's eight points, four assists and two steals.

In a second half that had 15 lead changes, Nicholson did everything to keep her team in the game, every thing a point guard should do. She turned the ball over just one time in the second stanza. She hit four free throws and a had a steal in the game's final three minutes.

Yesterday, both Nicholson and Coleman stepped it up when the money was on the table. They didn't fold under the pressure of a tight game, but thrived on it, as they always seem to do. Guard play wins basketball games, and if Nicholson and Coleman continue to play the way they did yesterday and the way they have all season long, the Lady Lions will go far this year.

Too bad that frog won't be here to see it.