When the Penn State and Michigan State women's basketball teams face off tonight, don't expect a love-fest. The Spartans (15-9, 5-8 Big Ten) are coming to town to take on the Lady Lions (16-9, 8-4) in what figures to be a tough Valentine's Day showdown tonight at 7 at The Bryce Jordan Center. In their last meeting on Jan. 20 in East Lansing, Michigan State tripped up the Lions, winning 65-62 as Penn State blew a late lead.

The Lions won their next five games, but fell to Iowa at home in their most recent contest on Sunday. Now, with just four games remaining in their season and the Big Ten tournament rapidly approaching, the team knows that they cannot afford to let this one slip away.

"Sometimes earlier in the season when we lost we'd just get down on ourselves," guard Jess Strom said. "On Sunday it was more like, 'alright, we know what we have to do now, we have to win the next four games.' We can't lose anymore."

Michigan State is coming off of a 62-57 win over Illinois in which sophomore Julie Pagel posted a career-high 25 points. Spartans' head coach Joanne P. McCallie thinks the victory could be a confidence-booster for her squad.

"I do think it gives us confidence because Illinois has a strong team," McCallie said. "They have some nice players, so we'll see how we can carry that to the next game."

The key for a Spartan victory tonight will be keeping the Lions' "nice player" and biggest offensive threat, sophomore Kelly Mazzante, in check. Michigan State was able to effectively bottle up the nation's leading scorer in the teams' last meeting and held her to just nine points, well below her nation-leading 25.3 points per-game average. Mazzante dropped 20 points against the Hawkeyes on Sunday, but registered just three in the first half. Lions' head coach Rene Portland has stressed that her team will need to continue getting scoring from guards Strom and Tanisha Wright if Mazzante is bogged down defensively.

"Jess needs to shoot the three, Tanisha needs to play her game," Portland said. "There's three people on (Mazzante), so two people are wide open, and all you have to do is connect orange to orange."

Portland's philosophy concerning Big Ten opponents has not changed all season -- don't lose to the same team twice, and don't lose at home. The Lions have heeded her words fairly well thus far. They have not dropped two games to the same team all year, but they are a less-than-stellar 6-4 at the Jordan Center. Tonight, they hope to meet both of Portland's objectives.

"We're thinking about revenge," Strom said, "but we're also thinking about 'don't lose at home.'"