You've all said it before. When a friend's relationship abruptly ends, a loved one passes away or when your favorite team loses the big game. You utter the four words that absolutely no one wants to hear, much less believe: Time heals all wounds.

But if the aforementioned cliché is indeed true, it looks like Penn State men's basketball coach Ed DeChellis could use a week (or even a month) to recover from his team's recent play. A visibly frustrated DeChellis spoke to the media yesterday morning at his weekly press conference and said the team's problems are nobody's fault but its own.

"We're the ones that kind of got us into the mess and we're the ones that kind of have to work to get us out of it," he said. "And we can't feel sorry for ourselves."

Saturday's 76-50 blowout loss to Wisconsin (14-4, 5-2 Big Ten) left the Nittany Lions (7-13, 1-6) winless in 11 of their past 13 games. After an admittedly sleepless Saturday night, DeChellis is trying hard to find some solutions.

"I think that's what's frustrating for me, when I come home Saturday and don't sleep, is you search, and you search, and you search and you try to help our team, try to help our kids get an advantage somewhere, or try to help them get better somewhere," DeChellis said. "And it's just got to be on the court and it's just going to take some time."

One aspect of Saturday's game that immediately jumps off the page is the play of both teams' guards. Wisconsin's trio of Sharif Chambliss, Clayton Hanson and Kammron Taylor combined for 38 points, or exactly half of Wisconsin's total scoring.

On the other hand, Penn State received little, if any help from its guards. Sophomore Ben Luber failed to score despite playing 32 minutes, and freshmen Mike Walker and Danny Morrissey combined for only 11 points.

DeChellis didn't directly address the play of his guards, but did hint at his team's struggles at the position when discussing tomorrow's matchup against Indiana. He cited that one of the main differences between the two teams was that Indiana has players who can "make a big shot for them, or score some points when they really needed to be scored," he said. "That's what's kind of different when you look at our situation."

The Lions' defense has also been a major problem for DeChellis. Big Ten opponents are making nearly 50 percent of their shots against the Lions (48.4 percent) while Penn State is giving up a conference-worst 75.6 points per game.

"You can't let people score and shoot the way they're shooting," DeChellis said. "It starts on your perimeter defense and the front line -- it's the first wave. ... It's young guys in our first wave, they're trying, but they're just not experienced enough, strong enough to really defend that first wave of attack and that hurts other things."

Penn State is also near the bottom in several other conference rankings: Last in scoring offense (60.4 ppg), turnover margin (minus-6.43 per game) and assist/turnover ratio (0.77). The Lions are second-last in assists (11.86 per game), steals (4.14 per game) and field goal shooting (39.8 percent).

DeChellis knows that in the short-term the Lions' are going to face an uphill battle nearly every game. He just hopes that time will eventually heal his wounds when his young team will be an experienced team in a few years.

"You like to drink the wine right now but it's just not ready," he said. "That saying sounds goofy, but it's got to ferment a little bit and it's got to age. Some of the things we saw on tape were about strength, some of the things were about speed, some things about quickness, and I don't know if I'm going to make that all better in two hours this afternoon. Some of it's just growing up and maturing."