Beating Wisconsin was the easy part.

Not beating themselves was the part that the No. 8 Penn State Lady Lions (20-4, 12-1 Big Ten) almost got stuck on last night, as a 17-point halftime lead dwindled with only minutes to play. Fortunately for Penn State, the Badgers (8-15, 2-11) ran out of time to complete the comeback and fell to the Lady Lions, 66-50.

After playing an almost flawless first half, where three Penn State players scored in double digits, the Lady Lions came out and played an extremely uninspired second half. The last Penn State field goal came with 7:28 to play., and the Lady Lions needed several free throws down the stretch to stay ahead. Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland was visibly disappointed with her team after the game.

"The biggest disappointment tonight was the lack of offense, obviously, for a 7-minute span in the second half, and lack of rebounding effort," Portland said.

She also isn't the coach that is happy with her team just because it won. Instead, she knows that the Lady Lions have a lot of kinks that need to be worked out, problems that should be corrected this late in the season.

Almost giving up a big lead to the bottom-feeding Badgers for the second time this season, senior Jess Brungo kept the Lady Lions ahead.

Brungo was unconscious from behind the arc, hitting 4-of-5 three-point attempts and finishing with a team-high 18 points. Wisconsin women's basketball coach Lisa Stone had nothing but good things to say about Brungo.

"Brungo likes to play against us," Stone said, referring to Brungo's 19-point outburst the last time the two teams met. "She's a real difficult match up and she's just a great player."

Tanisha Wright scored 10 of Penn State's first 16 points, but cooled down and finished with 17. Senior Kelly Mazzante ended her night with 15 points, hitting just 6-of-20 shots from the field.

Problems in the post forced Portland to pull all her post players and play Hazel Joseph. Joseph, who hasn't seen much playing time this season, made the most of the 13 minutes.

"She at least played with some heart," Portland said.

Penn State will travel to Iowa City to take on the Hawkeyes for the second time this season on Sunday at 3 p.m.