The Minnesota Golden Gophers entered yesterday's game at the Bryce Jordan Center as the typical Big Ten-style team led by a typical Big Ten-style player in forward Janel McCarville, who may be the nation's most dominant and most physical player on the block.

Contrasting styles aside, Penn State was looking for redemption after a disastrous road loss to Northwestern last Thursday, and yesterday the Lady Lions brawled their way to an 81-68 win on their home court and proved that they may be a much more physical bunch than many assume.

In the offensive end, the Lady Lions were paced by Wright, who tied a career-high 32 points, many of them on a dazzling array of step-back jumpers and baseline fall-aways that would make any basketball purist and devotee of the jump shot tingle.

But while Wright and back-court mate Strom, who made a Penn State record 15 free throws in 15 attempts, carried the scoring load for the Lady Lions, it was Penn State's unusually deep post rotation that loomed large yesterday.

Earlier in the week, coach Rene Portland said that even if the efforts of her post players were not showing up in the box score, they were still making an impact on the opposition.

"Other coaches are talking about our physical play and that was never a conversation the last two years," Portland said.

Playing against a team that trotted out five players over 6-feet tall throughout the course of yesterday's game, the undersized Lady Lions, in a surprising turn of events, still managed to out-rebound Minnesota 32-26.

But it was not just the post players who filled the rebound column, and no Lady Lion picked up more than five boards individually.

Maybe even more surprising than the overall edge in rebounding was that Penn State managed to collect 13 offensive boards against a team as physical as Minnesota. Guard Amber Bland picked up three rebounds on the offensive end, including two on one crucial series, and converted guard Jennifer Brenden, at 5-foot-10, picked up two of her own, despite often shadowing Minnesota's talented forward Jamie Broback, all 6-feet, 3-inches of her.

"There was a stretch at the end of the game where they picked up three offensive boards when we really needed to get a stop," Minnesota coach Pam Borton said. "I thought they did a really good job on the offensive boards when they needed to get one."

Other than Wright and Strom, no Penn State player really had eye-popping numbers in the game, but numerous Lady Lions stepped up to play quiet, but solid games.

Ashli Schwab put in a yeoman's effort in attempting to keep McCarville of the blocks and was spelled effectively by Hazel Joseph, who picked up five rebounds of her own in what might have been her best performance of the year.

Jen Harris also recovered from an abysmal first half in which she was in quick foul trouble to nail some big shots down the stretch.

What might have been the most telling and most unforeseen post-game quote came from Borton in describing Penn State's effort.

"I thought Penn State was the tougher and more aggressive team today," she said.

• Wright outduels McCarville