Losing is never easy to deal with, but it is how a team deals with a loss that can dictate whether it will be resilient, or crumble under the pressure of disappointment.

Last night, the Lady Lions watched No. 1 Tennessee play No. 2 Villanova in the finals of the 2003 NCAA Women's Basketball Mideast Regional Final from the comfort of their own rooms. The mood was no doubt a somber one.

The Penn State women's basketball team's lopsided loss on Saturday to the Lady Vols, 86-58, still leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the players, but the past season did have its high points.

"It was a good year but too bad that everything has to end badly like with a loss," redshirt sophomore guard Jen Brenden said.

"We have to look back and see some of the good things that we did. We already know that we have a lot to improve on and work on."

At the beginning of every season, Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland collaborates with her team to establish goals for each game of the season. More importantly, the Lady Lions set the overriding goals of the season that dictate the direction Penn State wants to go. This year, they accomplished one of their three goals -- winning the Big Ten regular season title outright.

"We played some great games, we did win the Big Ten, so you have to look at all of things and see them as positive," forward Ashli Schwab said. "It's just hard to get right now."

Brenden furthered the sentiments of her teammate and said the many lessons learned from this season will be transposed on each individual once next year starts. After all, the players will

not have a hard time forgetting the feelings they had in Knoxville, Tenn., as there were no seniors on this team. Everyone will return to preseason with the loss in the Sweet 16 on their minds.

"Every year we're looking to get better," she said. "That was our goal last year and that's our goal this year, to get better."

Others felt that the loss was due, in part, to some bad luck. The Lady Lions missed more than a half a dozen open lay-ups against Tennessee, and had an equal number of shots rim out of the basket. The problem compounded on itself when the Lady Vols maintained a relentless attack on offense and defense.

"I wouldn't say that we weren't prepared to play, the biggest thing was that we just didn't adapt to [Tennessee]," said sophomore forward Hazel Joseph. "Things just didn't go our way."

Still, it was not unexpected that some of the players would have a hard time talking about the loss in the lockerroom immediately following the game. The combination of shock and grief probably has yet to fully set in.

"It's obviously hard to [put the season in perspective] right now," Schwab said. "It was a very embarrassing and disappointing loss. When you do step back and look at it, we did do a lot of good things this year."