Being out-rebounded is nothing new for this team, but Saturday was a whole new extreme.

The Penn State women's basketball team can look back at its Sweet 16 loss to Tennessee and say that it happened for one reason: its inability to rebound.

The Lady Lions were demolished on the glass 54-24, and as a result found themselves allowing easy lay-ups and playing from behind the entire 40 minutes.

"The rebounding killed us," Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland said. "They made a lot of their shots on second and third attempts. We kept emphasizing it, but nobody did it."

The Lady Volunteers took full advantage, and made a statement early as to how the game would be played. They made sure that the Lions got only one shot on offense. On the other end, on the rare occasions that the Vols missed shots early on, they wound up with the rebound. Easy rebounds led to easy second-chance points, which the Vols made a point of drilling home.

Tennessee pulled down 24 offensive rebounds, the same number of rebounds the Lions had in total, showing the drive the Vols had.

"[Penn State] was physical rebounding, but we know it's a mindset about desire," forward Shyra Ely said. "We knew we wanted it more."

It appeared as though the Lions knew this and played timidly from the opening tip until the final buzzer.

Starting center Hazel Joseph picked up two fouls in the first four minutes of the game, and she never got into any sort of rhythm from there. Ashli Schwab did a valiant job filling in, scoring 10 points off the bench in the first half, but only grabbed one board and did not have much help.

The Lions managed just 14 rebounds in the first half, partly because at times they were forced to rely on 5-foot-10 Jen Brenden or 6-1 Jess Brungo in the post, and the Vols repeatedly ate them up.

"It was a priority for us this week," Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt said. "Watching tape, we felt like that was a place we might be successful." An understatement, considering the rebounding problem is nothing new for the Lions. Portland has been stressing rebounding all season, knowing that in one game, it could be their undoing, as it was on Saturday.

The Vols came into the contest averaging over 11 boards more than their opposition, and took full advantage of a lackluster post presence by the Lions all game. The Vols rode their post dominance into the Elite 8.