Home never felt so good.

After dropping its first three games, all on the road, the now-unranked Penn State women's basketball team opens up at home tonight against Duquesne (0-1).

Both teams are desperately searching for their first win of the season.

"We need to get better as a basketball team," Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland said. "We've run into a wall and its awfully early to run into a wall. We need to get through it."

That wall was actually three walls, named No. 4 Texas, No. 10 Duke, and No. 24 Villanova. Three road games, three road losses.

The latest loss, Sunday's 73-65 slide against Villanova, was especially trying for the Lady Lions' patience.

"We are at the breaking point right now," Portland said. "We need to ask ourselves, 'How much longer are we going to let this happen?' "

Before the start of the season, the buzz around the Lady Lions was one of a revamped high-tempo offense, built around speedy guards like Tanisha Wright, Jess Strom and Jen Harris.

So far, each has contributed in spots, but the backcourt trio hasn't combined its efforts in the same place at the same time.

Wright put up a career-high 30 points in the season opener versus the Longhorns, and Strom pitched in 18 points herself, but Harris only had nine points, and forwards Ashli Schwab, Amanda Brown and Hazel Joseph combined for only seven points.

Harris broke out against Duke with a career-high 17 points, but 21 Penn State turnovers negated any offensive momentum.

Wright led the team in scoring again on Sunday with 22 points against Villanova, but neither Strom nor Harris could get anything going.

"Right now, we are not playing Penn State basketball," Wright said. "We need to check ourselves. It's not the coaches. It's everyone on this roster."

Tonight is the team's best chance to finally get all offensive cylinders churning against a Duquesne team that has never beaten the Lady Lions in 14 tries, but the teams haven't met since 1991, the last year Penn State played in the Atlantic-10 conference with the Dukes.

The Penn State-Duquesne connection is not your average intrastate rivalry, because the Dukes head coach Dan Durkin is a former Lady Lions assistant coach, and Dukes assistant coach Tanya Garner is a former Lady Lions player. Durkin coached under Portland at Penn State from 1986-1993 before taking the helm of the Duquesne program.

Freshmen alert

Adrienne Squire and Amber Bland became the first freshmen in action for the Lady Lions this season, and both saw time off the bench against Duke on Friday with limited playing time. Bland did sink her first collegiate bucket this weekend, too, nine minutes into the Villanova contest.

A stat to forget

Sunday's loss marks the first time a Penn State team has started a season 0-3 in the 25 years of Portland's reign as head coach. The Lady Lions started 0-2 during the 1988-89 season, and finished that year tied for fourth in the Atlantic-10 Conference with a 14-14 (12-6 Atlantic-10) record.