INDIANAPOLIS

Eleven teams. Ten games. Four days. One champion.

And one glaring necessity that is all the more important in March.

If it wasn't obvious enough throughout the regular season, with Ohio State's 6-foot-5 Jessica Davenport winning Big Ten Player of the Year honors, having a dominant post player to go with solid guard play is the recipe for success in the conference.

The tournament champion, Michigan State, was a pure example of what that inside-outside balance means. The Spartans' guards did everything that was asked of them -- handle the basketball, make clutch shots and get the ball to the post.

In the final minutes of last Monday's championship game, when Michigan State scored the final eight points to win its first tournament championship, forward Liz Shimek scored the first four and 6-foot-4 Kelli Roehrig was there for the final rebound and the icing on the foul line.

"It's tremendously important to have people who can command in the paint and play with confidence," Michigan State coach Joanne McCallie said the day before her team dismissed Penn State. "The Big Ten has excellent post players. It's just a big part of the game. You have to be able to get the paint scores. A lot is made of 3-point shooting and outside play, but I would just say the guard play, handling the basketball and making sure the ball gets to those post players inside-out will be the determining factor, particularly in March."

Boy, was she right.

But it's that kind of philosophy that Penn State hasn't practiced lately, which may explain the drought of tournament championships since 1996. Rather, the Lady Lions program is built around guards. It's not as if basing a team around the best backcourt in the conference is a bad thing, but for those who never saw or heard of a game outside the Bryce Jordan Center, Penn State does lose. And a lot of that can be contributed to not having any other options besides Tanisha Wright and Jess Strom.

Earlier in the season when Strom was home with an illness as her team traveled to Northwestern, Wright was forced to take on the entire scoring load with no other legitimate scoring option -- and Penn State lost. When Wright got in foul trouble this season at Purdue, Strom wasn't enough to carry her team to a win.

If Penn State can learn anything from the most recent tournament, it should be that balance is the key.

Wisconsin coach Lisa Stone used Michigan State as an example even before the Spartans were Big Ten champs.

"They have solid guard play and a dominant post presence," she said. "If you take the guards away, you go inside. If you go inside and they double, you kick out to the shooters and drivers."

Sounds easy enough.

Minnesota, the No. 4 seed, upset top-seeded Ohio State thanks to its center Janel McCarville and her 21 points, 15 rebounds and her ability to hold Davenport to 12 points and 12 rebounds in 43 minutes. McCarville and her sidekick down on the block, Jamie Broback, who would have been the tournament's Most Outstanding Player had the Golden Gophers pulled out a win, were the reasons they were even in the championship.

Penn State, on the other hand, was some late game heroics from Wright and Strom away from losing to Iowa in the quarterfinals, and was handcuffed against Michigan State.

Iowa center Jamie Cavey and teammate forward Johanna Solverson combined for 41 points and 13 rebounds against the Lady Lions; both were a serious matchup problem all night, especially with Amanda Brown in foul trouble.

Then, two days later with Strom missing five minutes in the first half with a turned ankle and Wright sitting out seven-plus minutes because of fouls, Penn State could get neither a defensive stop nor establish a strong enough inside presence to take the focus off of either of the seniors.

Shimek and Roehrig, meanwhile, lit up the Lady Lions for 37 combined points and got to the free throw line 16 times. Penn State got there just nine times as a team.

The blame should not go to Brown or Ashli Schwab or whoever had the responsibility in the paint. Brown and Schwab do a good job fulfilling their roles on the supporting cast, getting rebounds and taking turns scoring every-so-often.

It's the system that is flawed. Instead of bringing in a post player to use as that yin to the guards' yang, the Lady Lions' posts are simply there to hopefully take away the opponents' beast in the middle, while the guards win it.

It seems all well and good, and Wright and Strom certainly are an exciting pair to watch lead a team.

So Coach Portland, if you can hear this: For the next Tanisha Wright's sake. Or the next Jess Strom, or Kelly Mazzante or whomever's sake. Take notice of the Spartans, or even the Gophers and Buckeyes, and get someone who scares people inside.

And if it ever happens, get that woman the ball and watch out, success in March just might follow.