Good things come in threes. Soda: small, medium, large. Jokes: minister, priest, rabbi. Tic-tac-toe.

Three more games stand between the No. 24 Penn State women's basketball team and it's a very good thing: a Big Ten Conference championship three-peat.

The Lady Lions (16-8, 11-2 Big Ten) share second place in the conference right now with No. 9 Michigan State -- but the tie goes to Penn State, who slapped the Spartans 73-56 on Jan. 23 in the Bryce Jordan Center.

Climatic scheduling pits the Lady Lions against conference leading No. 2 Ohio State (24-2, 11-1) in the last game of the regular season, just two weekends away. The Dec. 30 matchup between the Buckeyes and the Lady Lions was epic -- with Penn State keeping its home unbeaten streak alive, a streak that now stands at 18 games, dating back to last season.

"Any time you play a team the second time around it's kind of difficult," Penn State associate head coach Annie Troyan said in a Feb. 8 press conference. "You want the kids to see what they did well the first time around, but you know that the team is going to go back and make changes."

Should both teams win all their games in between, the game will be a de facto championship.

But that game is in Columbus, Ohio, and the Lady Lions have not proven themselves adept at building confidence on the road -- a 6-8 record away from State College isn't exactly what the doctor ordered.

"We've addressed it," Troyan said. "We've addressed it in so many different ways. It's a challenge."

Penn State head coach Rene Portland and her staff have tried to mimic their home pregame routine on the road, but the payoffs remain to be seen.

Before the Lady Lions faltered at the hands of Purdue more than one week ago, Portland sent the team to the mall in hopes that they would walk around, shop, and hopefully cool down pregame nerves. Prior to home games the team is together in the bowels of the Jordan Center, hanging out, listening to music and relaxing.

If Penn State takes care of business at home this week against Wisconsin and Northwestern, a lot of pairs of basketball eyes will fix their gaze on Columbus.

Holla at the Phoenix

No. 23 Wisconsin-Green Bay continues to be the hottest no-name team in NCAA Division I basketball since IUPUI. The Phoenix (21-2, 12-0 Horizon League) and its perfect conference record are this year's glass-slipper team as the regular season winds down.

The Phoenix haven't beaten another ranked opponent this season, falling 60-51 to No. 16 Minnesota in its only top-25 game all season. But there's still plenty of time for UWGB to rise from its own ashes.

Tourney talk

Depending on how they finish out the regular season, and how they fare in the Big Ten Tournament, the Lady Lions' wheel of destiny could spin them to any of the four corners of the NCAA Tournament.

As it stands, Penn State is projected as a No. 5 seed in the Philadelphia regional bracket on CollegeRPI.com, and would be trekking out to Seattle for the first two rounds. Arizona is the projected No. 12 seed and would be Penn State's first opponent in that scenario.