When asked for an opening statement on Tuesday's Big Ten teleconference, Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland made it simple.

"We're fine here," she said.

After her team's first loss in the conference at the hands of No. 10 Minnesota (18-3, 7-3 Big Ten) Sunday night, Portland may have felt the need to reaffirm that there was no sense of despair in Happy Valley. But, while conference coaches show no indication of believing otherwise, the situation in the Big Ten has gotten a bit more interesting.

With the loss, the No. 8 Lady Lions (18-4, 10-1) still remain first in conference standings, but now share their ranking with No. 5 Purdue (20-2, 10-1). The Boilermakers have not only stolen a share of the Lions' top spot, they also have stolen the bulls-eye off its back. Rolling on an 11-game winning streak, 10 within the conference, they have not lost since Penn State took them on their home court on Jan. 2.

Penn State and Purdue are certainly not the only teams in the hunt for the regular season conference championship, however. No. 17 Michigan State (18-4, 8-3) and Minnesota, who round out the Big Ten's representatives in the top 25, take the next two spots, lingering just two games behind.

"I've always thought that our conference had a tremendous amount of parity," Purdue women's basketball coach Kristy Curry said. "The bottom line is that there's still a lot of basketball to be played."

And indeed there is. In the final two weeks of the conference season, Penn State, Purdue and Michigan State will all play each other a second time, while Minnesota has no additional meetings with any of the three. For Penn State, the chance remains to end the season like it began, or to let it slide away.

"Penn State has Purdue at home, and they have a couple of other games that could give them some problems," Minnesota women's basketball coach Pam Borton said. "With Penn State having one loss, I think it's a little less breathing room for them."

But though the conference's momentum now rests with the team from West Lafayette, one loss for the Lions has not done anything to take away from the respect they command in Big Ten country.

"The conference schedule is a long one, it's a difficult one to negotiate and I don't think anyone thought that there would be a team to go through unscathed," Ohio State women's basketball coach Jim Foster said. "And I don't think that by any stretch is a negative. The only conference team that I can think of [in the nation] that is unscathed [in conference] is Tennessee."

With the battle for the championship crown still an undecided one, the final two weeks of conference play will tell all. The Lions will have their second bye day of the season to figure out just how to prove they are indeed as fine as ever Sunday afternoon against Michigan.

Borton knows the team her squad went 1-1 against thus far this year, and is already convinced of that fact.

"Everybody's going to get upset along the road," Borton said. "They're going to be fine."