In the first half against Michigan State, down 19-14, the Penn State women's basketball team was in a bind. The Lady Lions had started out the game flat. They couldn't buy a bucket.

Penn State coach Rene Portland pulled starters Jen Harris and Amanda Brown in favor of freshman Amber Bland and undersized forward Jenny Brenden.

Four minutes later, the Lady Lions were up 23-19, the result of a seven-point run.

"We can't get down that early in the first five minutes of the game because some days you're not going to be able to dig yourself out of the hole," Portland said. "Everything has to be adjustable to the team you're playing.

"I think Jenny Brenden did a great job handling [Spartans forward Liz] Shimek. She was a little quicker than Amanda. She could get up and under her. Amanda gave her problems size-wise, but Jenny was able to give her something speed for speed, and I think that was a decisive thing."

Bland's help on the defensive side changed the tide, too, even in a small lineup with four guards and a forward against one of the more physical inside teams in the Big Ten.

"I think Amber goes in and gives us some great defensive things," Portland said. "She allows us to move Tanisha [Wright] off the ball. Tanisha has gone 40 minutes on the ball in the past, but now that we have somebody else, that really saves some energy for Tanisha on the offensive end."

Right when Bland entered the game, Wright scored the first two baskets during Penn State's run and got to the free-throw line.

The words "physical" and "Penn State" haven't been thrown around about any Lady Lions team in recent memory, but Portland said during yesterday's press conference that her team's post play has earned props from opposing coaches.

"Other coaches are talking about our physical play and that was never a conversation the last two years," Portland said. "The physical play just comes from -- that's the way [assistant coach] Susan [Robinson-Fruchtl] played."

Robinson-Fruchtl, a former standout center for Penn State, is the Lady Lions' first-year assistant coach responsible for post-player development.

"Susan actually went out on the court with them at Baylor and I bet some of the players wish she never comes out on the court with them again," Portland said. "She hit some vicious picks. All I could do was laugh. I had to tell her to stop. It was like watching her back from '88-'92. She's physical. And these guys, they better understand her now and her intensity."

The Lady Lions will be listening to Portland's warning ever more carefully this week, when one of the most feared post players in the Big Ten comes to town on Sunday.

Janel McCarville of Minnesota, who is on the watch list for the Wade Trophy, women's basketball's highest honor, is a player described by the Lady Lions with words like "imagination," "agility" and "power."

McCarville and Wright, also on the "Wade Watch" list, were named co-Big Ten Players of the Week this week. McCarville scored 41 points total during last week's games and Wright shot 54 percent against Michigan State.

No tickets for you!

When Connecticut Sun guard Jess Brungo called her former coach Annie Troyan for eight tickets to Sunday's duel with the Golden Gophers, Troyan asked who would be joining Brungo in the stands.

When Brungo said current Sun teammate and former Golden Gophers' star Lindsay Whalen, Troyan told Brungo: "Lindsay?! She can get her own damn tickets!"

"Lindsay's a friend of ours, you know," Portland said. "When [the Penn State coaching staff] went to see [Brungo and Whalen] play up in Connecticut we took them all out to dinner afterwards."

Can't escape the Eagles

A native of the city of brotherly love, Portland was asked in yesterday's press conference whether or not she was still rooting for the city's Super Bowl hopes.

"A friend of mine called me the other day and said, 'You must be able to get tickets,' " Portland said. "I said, 'If I could get tickets to the Super Bowl, don't you think I would use them?' "

The Lady Lions face the Purdue Boilermakers in West Lafayette, Ind., on the afternoon of Super Bowl Sunday.