Any disciple of John Chaney will preach the benefits of the zone defense. Last night, the Penn State women's basketball team channeled the zen of the zone to shut down Illinois.

Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland planned to utilize a more man-to-man matchup to deal with the Illini's two premier players -- the physical Angelina Williams and the pesky Tiffanie Guthrie. Those plans changed, slightly, as the game's early minutes ticked by.

The start was a sloppy one for the Lady Lions on offense and defense, with the Illini taking a quick lead. Penn State limped along slowly, bringing the game back to a 16-16 tie.

That was when the clamp came down.

Portland switched out of the man-to-man defense into a 1-3-1 zone.

"We just never got back on track after that," Illinois coach Theresa Gentz said.

At the end of the first half, the Lady Lions had held the Illini to only 20 points, the lowest points allowed in a half all season. It was all in the zone.

"We actually only gave it five minutes, five minutes, five minutes in the three days we practiced," Portland said about the team's defensive preparations in practice prior to last night's game. "There was a spot when they were popping a post out and having success. There were some changes at half-time to adjust."

Illinois eventually combated the zone by swinging a low-post player around the "sagging man," as Gentz called it, which opened up the baseline a bit more to attack the basket. Penn State countered by switching from a 1-3-1 zone to a half-court trap defense, and mixed in more man-to-man, keeping the Illini out of sync.

"I think you'll look at statistics and see that [the Illini are] not a great 3-point shooting team," Portland said. "It was the defense. I think our change-ups really helped us the most."

Williams, the Illini's leading scorer, couldn't be kept under lock and key the whole game, but she certainly had her hands full with two-time Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Tanisha Wright in her face.

"She got away from us a few times, because she's capable of doing that," Portland said. "But I thought, especially in the second half, T shut her down to almost nothing. Our zone really challenged their outside shooting, which wasn't there tonight."

By the numbers

The Lady Lions outrebounded the Illini 28-15 on the defensive boards, taking away a lot of second-chance point opportunities.

Illinois' 41 points is the fewest points allowed on defense by the Lady Lions all season.

Unofficial stat time

Sure, the Lady Lions posted eight steals, but what doesn't come across on the box score is the number of times Penn State fingers touched the ball -- 11 times in "almost steals" through tipped passes, poking the ball away from Illini ball-handlers, just creating chaos.