"Road warriors" is not a term that would aptly describe the Penn State women's basketball team's performance this season. Only three of the Lady Lions' eight wins have come outside of the cozy comforts of the Bryce Jordan Center, but things are looking up.

After handing No. 21 Iowa (13-2, 2-2 Big Ten) its first loss of the season last Thursday, the Lady Lions took down Wisconsin in Madison, Wis., improving their overall record to 8-6 and keeping their slate clean in the Big Ten too, at 3-0.

For her efforts against the Hawkeyes and Badgers, senior guard Jess Strom was even named this week's Big Ten Player of the Week, the first such distinction for the Lady Lions this year.

The tough non-conference schedule, ranked the nation's second most difficult, could be starting to pay dividends.

"I'd like to say yes, but I'm not sure," Penn State coach Rene Portland said. "It's still too early to see if everything works out the way that we plan it to work out. We plan to play the best to be the best.

"I do think it helps, when I receive an article from the Ohio newspaper where one of their players says they weren't ready for some of the things that happened to them when they came to Penn State. You don't just learn from losses, you learn from wins, too -- and hopefully these last few wins will be the ones we learn the most from, too."

Different practice strategies are paying off for the Lions, too. Strom indicated she's using the "shooting machine" more and more, which she credited to her recent big-scoring outings.

"We have to make people believe in us again," Portland said. "It starts with us and this road trip is a step in the right direction. The inconsistencies we showed earlier in the season, and I think the Marquette game was the game where if we got them people would have left us alone, but right now nobody believes in us but ourselves, so we still have an uphill battle to prove that we're not pretenders."

Portland's response was in reference to the Lady Lions' absence from either The Associated Press or ESPN/USA Today Top 25 women's basketball polls.

With its record slowly improving with the start of Big Ten play, Penn State's self-esteem is rising too.

"I think it was great for our confidence," Strom said. "We haven't been winning on the road this year and it showed people, especially the freshmen, that we can take this energy we have here with us on the road."

For most of yesterday's press conference, Portland, Strom and Ashli Schwab were in a noticeably happy mood, with Portland at one point making fun of Strom for needing to follow her coach's advice on practice techniques more often -- like her improvement with the "shooting machine."

Portland, despite initial enthusiasm for Strom's weekly Big Ten honor, had some questions as to why it took until the eighth week of the season for one of her players to be recognized.

"Even in losses we have statistically blown some things out of the water and strength of schedule, and for us to not get a Big Ten Player of the Week prior to this time is almost laughable," Portland said. "Jess really deserved it, so we just continue to wonder: How do you get Player of the Week? The criteria is really unbelievable, and the inconsistency. I feel like I'm back in the AIAW days where, 'Oh, everybody gets a turn.' "

The Lady Lions get their next turn at a Big Ten opponent tomorrow, when Illinois comes to town.