Coaches often like to talk about finding the "right pieces of the puzzle" to build a championship team.

As a team with championship aspirations, the Penn State women's basketball team has been looking for the proper combination to help it reach this season's stated goal, a Final Four, with varied success.

The No. 8 Lady Lions knew before the season they would need solid play from their posts and more people involved in scoring points on offense.

It sounds like a simple formula, this puzzle theory: get the right pieces, throw them together in a locker room and watch as this finely rendered creation marches toward victory.

However, people -- well, at least most people -- tend to be a little less predictable than contoured bits of cardboard. Some pieces have rough edges. Some pieces look perfect, then have a stray corner that curls up and needs to be smoothed out.

During last week's pre-game preparation, the Lady Lions focused a great deal of their attention on fixing a couple pieces of their puzzle.

Most poignantly, Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland was not happy with the production she had been getting from her post players, openly questioning their efforts in her weekly press conference.

"I'm tired of it. I've had it," Portland said last week of her post players.

It now looks like Portland's comments had their desired effect. With their play Sunday against Illinois, the players showed they took their coach's comments seriously.

Prior to Sunday's 79-64 win against Illinois, freshman Reicina Russell and junior Ashli Schwab, who have split the majority of the minutes in the post, were combining to average 8.2 points and 9.7 rebounds per game. In Sunday's game, the two combined to score 21 points and grab 12 rebounds.

"We looked at [what was said last week] and realized, hey, we have to do something here," Schwab said after Sunday's game. "We don't want to not be a factor on this team."

The result was a much more focused group of post players when Penn State took the floor Sunday afternoon -- and they seemed to focus the hardest on the things Portland had specifically pointed out.

Portland was especially critical of her post players' lack of intensity on offense, but on Sunday, Russell and Schwab even looked to create their own shots at times. Schwab said she was most pleased about the defense the posts played against All-Big Ten forward Cindy Dallas, who was held to zero points in the first half.

"I need to want the ball more, and defensively I have to move my feet more," Schwab said. "I'm just trying to encourage [the other post players] as much as I can, let them know we have a lot of work to do."

Getting junior point guard Jess Strom back to her early season form was another point of emphasis during last week's practice. The Jess Strom who had been so proficient in every phase of the game in the Lions' early season victories against Kansas State, Texas and Baylor appeared to be slumping toward the end of the non-conference slate and into the beginning of Big Ten play.

"The few games she started out so strong in the beginning, both defensively, offensively," Portland said. "And then, just the last three or four, we really lost her. Offensively she wasn't hitting her shots, defensively she wasn't getting her steals. Annie has really put the clamps back on her."

"Annie" is Annie Troyan, the Lions' top assistant, a former point guard in college who spends much of practice working with the Lions' point guards. Portland said Troyan and Strom would work "very closely" during last week's practice.

And, after a slight drop off from her stellar play earlier in the season, Strom's play also concerned Troyan.

"I have a love-hate relationship with my point guard," Troyan said of Strom, who says the same thing of Troyan. "She doesn't love me now because I am going to be on her."

Troyan said Strom lost her focus a little after being so dominant in the first half of the Lions' non-conference schedule.

"She just got so good so fast," Troyan said. "In the beginning [of the season], she didn't let anything slip. She got a little complacent. I have to get her back to the mode where she doesn't let anything slip again."

Consistency will still be the key for Strom and Penn State, but the point guard's nine-point, eight-assist, six-steal outing against the Illini suggests that Troyan's tough love may have gotten the job done.

"We had more time together [last week] because it was a home game. We watched a lot of film [together]," Strom said after the Illinois game. "We worked on a lot of game management: where to go with the ball, what plays to run with the time on the clock."

A brief slump and the point guard may be back. An early season of mediocrity for the post-players and now the interior game may finally be coming around.

So, maybe the pieces can just fall into place -- with a little help, of course.