The Penn State women's basketball team talked a lot about how much it learned from the Philadelphia 76ers visit to Happy Valley before the season began.

Still, the Lady Lions obviously missed one Sixers lesson — you can't win without your star player.

Unlike Philadelphia, which dropped its first five games without Allen Iverson, Penn State persevered without preseason Big Ten Player of the Year Kelly Mazzante to earn a 84-53 exhibition win against the Perik Jumpers from Holland Monday night.

Then again, none of Larry Brown's boys could duplicate A.I.'s numbers. The Lady Lions did not face the same issues as forward Jessica Brungo stepped up with 25 points, eight rebounds and four assists. Also contributing was center Rashana Barnes, who had 17 points in her return from injury while still hampered by sore knees and forward Courtney Upshaw who scored 10 points and pulled down eight rebounds.

"I think they all should have chipped in more and what you saw of Jess Brungo I think she can do all the time," Penn State coach Rene Portland said. "As this group grows up, there's a lot of talent on this team and there's several people there that should be able to get the job done and it's nice to see Jess do it tonight but it'll be even nicer when Kelly comes back and she keeps doing it."

Brungo displayed the potential that Portland espouses from the early moments in the game, when the forward scored both inside and from beyond the arc.

One of those three's snapped a four-minute Lion scoring drought with 11:21 left in first half.

"I know I have to look to step up and score more and be a big part of the team. . .tonight was a step in that direction," Brungo said.

Helping Brungo out on many of those scoring opportunities was freshman point guard Jess Strom, who had a breakout game with nine assists to go with her seven points.

Portland said one thing her team was going to have to adapt to was Strom's passing the ball after driving the lane, which caught many off guard in Monday's contest.

Particularly vulnerable to this was Upshaw, who Portland said could have had 25 points had she been able to convert Strom's feeds.

The team believes things like that will come with time though, as they adjust to one another. For the season, the more important lesson was they could succeed without their top gun.

"She obviously carries us through a lot of games but this year we're all going to have to step it up a little bit because teams are going to be after her," Brungo said.

The Lions hope they can carry the momentum from their two-preseason victories into Friday's season opener against Villanova at home.