This weekend, the No. 15 Penn State women's basketball team (18-5, 10-3 Big Ten) faces its stiffest challenge of the season in No. 2 Purdue (21-1, 12-0).

But you can take away the rankings.

While you're at it, simply disregard the fact that Purdue has by far the best backcourt in women's college basketball in All-Big Ten guards Stephanie White-McCarty and Ukari Figgs.

For all of Purdue's talent and out-and-out domination of opponents this season, there's one major aspect of tomorrow's battle at The Bryce Jordan Center that must not be overlooked.

The Lady Lions have history on their side.

Think back to Nov. 18, when Penn State opened the season with an embarrassing 49-46 loss to rival Pittsburgh at Fitzgerald Field House. There wasn't a single Lion who was successful in reaching the double-digit point plateau that night. That game caused the media's preseason prediction that Penn State would finish second in the Big Ten to look like a tremendous overestimation.

How did Penn State respond to the Pittsburgh nightmare? It promptly went out and rattled off eight consecutive victories, three coming against top-10 opponents.

In fact, if you overlook the horrendous four-game stretch over winter break when it lost three times, twice by a mere five points or less on the road, Penn State has as sound a record as any team in the nation.

So last Friday, as I listened to the Lions struggle with a Wisconsin team they had blown out 91-61 exactly one week earlier, I was mildly astounded. After all, here was a team that was averaging 90.4 points per game over its last five conference battles. If that wasn't impressive enough, the Lions were allowing an average of more than 65 points per game over that same stretch.

In layman's terms, the Lions not only were winning. They were utterly punishing their opponents in the process.

Then, along came Wisconsin. And although the Badgers are certainly talented enough to give any team in the Big Ten a significant scare, only two kinds of people seriously expected them to put fright into the red-hot Lions -- diehard Wisconsin fans and compulsive liars.

Sure, the Lions won the game in overtime, 73-71. But in both the Pittsburgh and Wisconsin games, Penn State had its chances to put both outgunned opponents away early. Poor shooting from the field prevented the Lions from doing just that at Pittsburgh. An uncharacteristic lapse from the free-throw line -- Penn State shot just 46 percent from the charity stripe -- did the trick against Wisconsin.

After this weekend, we'll all see if Penn State used the hard-fought win at Wisconsin the same way it did the Pittsburgh loss -- as a wakeup call. The Lions sure appeared focused Sunday when they ripped Northwestern, 92-63.

If history repeats itself, that winning trend will continue.

If history repeats itself, Purdue, even with all its greatness, could be in serious trouble.

Just ask North Carolina State, Alabama and Old Dominion -- the three top-10 teams who got upended by the Lions during their post-Pittsburgh winning streak in this season's infancy.

Considering the last meeting between the two teams -- a 53-48 Boilermaker win at Mackey Arena Jan. 5 -- it's evident Penn State matches up quite well with Purdue. Center Andrea Garner scored 15 points in that game and was able to take advantage of her team's marked advantage in the post. Garner's showing was good enough to keep Penn State close in a tough road game on a night when star guard Helen Darling hit just 3 of 11 shots from the field.

If Darling and guard Lisa Shepherd play with the precision they've shown in recent weeks, and Garner can continue with the performance that earned her the Big Ten's Player of the Week award this week, Penn State will shock the women's college basketball world.

Hey, I may have picked the Buffalo Bills to win three Super Bowls.

But I can smell this upset cooking from a mile away.