Tom Davis, in a surprisingly good mood for a man visibly sweaty and recently defeated, walked into a crowded Rec Hall interview room Saturday afternoon and greeted the waiting media with a rather simple observation.

"It was a good win for them," the coach of the Iowa men's basketball team said.

Davis was referring to the Nittany Lion squad that had just handed his Hawkeyes a 10-point loss, but he wasn't exactly right. It wasn't just a big win for the Penn State basketball team. It was, arguably, its biggest of the season.

"So far, it is," senior center John Amaechi said. "It doesn't make up for some of the close losses we've had, but certainly it was essential for us to stop the skid that we were in."

That skid, comprised of the Lions' first back-to-back losses of the season, was threatening to get bigger and uglier and throw the team right off of its desired path toward the NCAA tournament.

And when Penn State was mauled on national television (ESPN) by conference-leading Michigan State last Thursday, the threat looked real.

"It was just going out there and staying strong and going hard the whole time, putting forth the effort, and I think we did a better job of that," sophomore point guard Dan Earl said after the Iowa game. "(At) Michigan State, we definitely didn't do that, and it was an embarrassment. We didn't want to have that happen twice."

It didn't, and the threat was averted, leaving Penn State in an unusually agreeable situation. Midway through the Big Ten season, the Lions find themselves with a winning league record to go with their 7-1 non-conference mark. Their postseason fate rests quite openly in their own hands.

"It's just nice to be halfway through and be above .500," Lion Coach Bruce Parkhill said. "If somebody would've asked me before the season, if at the midpoint in the league you're going to be 13-5, I definitely would've taken that."

And now, the stretch run -- nine games, five of them on the road --to determine whether the Lions will join 63 other teams in the Big Dance, or host Duke in the first round of the NIT.

"I think the best way to put it would be that we need to continue to improve," Amaechi said. "It's certainly not going to be any easier now. But we have things that we know we need to work on to enable us to have, if you like, a strong finish."

With the likes of Illinois and Michigan State looming next week, that strong finish is anything but a guarantee, and the Lions know it. But Saturday was a start.

"I'm really, really elated with this win," Parkhill said. "This is a better win than might appear from the outside. I'm really proud of the guys. The guys just really played tough."