There are certain upsets that can be understood simply by taking a quick glance at the box score.

For instance, it is well known that when Villanova beat Georgetown in the 1985 NCAA championship game, the Wildcats shot an otherworldly 79 percent.

From the not-so-well-known category, when lowly Northwestern beat the Penn State Lady Lions earlier this year, the Wildcats outshot Penn State 57 percent to 27 percent in the decisive first half.

But as I sat down in the media room of the Comcast Center early yesterday morning and perused the post-game stat sheet from the No. 4-seeded Lady Lions colossal collapse against the No. 13 Lady Flames of Liberty, I was struck by how poorly the game statistics actually reflected the outcome.

Sure, the Lady Lions did shoot a mediocre 37 percent as compared to 48 percent for the Lady Flames, and yes, Tanisha Wright, Jess Strom and Jen Harris, Penn State's top three scorers, all shot abysmally.

But somehow Penn State managed to turn the ball over a season-low six times and still became only the fourth No. 14 seed to ever be upset in the first round of the women's NCAA tournament, and that is a statistic that I find positively baffling.

This suggests one of two things. First, that Penn State was simply not able to knock down its shots despite executing its offense quite well, or second, that the offense simply was not effective in attacking the Lady Flames' zone.

Penn State's shooting was far from fantastic, but I believe that the latter reason comes much closer to explaining exactly what sunk the Lady Lions Sunday night, and in fact what sunk them nearly every time they lost this season.

The Lady Lions entered every game this year with a specific game plan and if that game plan was ineffective or if the opposition made adjustments then Penn State tended to be up a certain creek without a paddle.

It would probably be going too far to say that Rene Portland got out-coached by the bible-thumping Carey Green on Sunday night, but the thought is certainly one worth kicking around.

Penn State has struggled against zone defenses all year, but in the first half, Portland repeatedly took advantage of the gap in the middle of the defense by running a simple play that involved Wright running to the baseline and curling back to the gaping whole in front of Liberty's 6-foot-8 behemoth, Katie Feenstra.

Apparently, the play was called "four" or at least it was called by Portland raising four fingers in the air, and by halftime Wright had scored about four easy buckets off of the play and had sent Feenstra to the bench with two fouls.

The problem was that also by halftime, every player, coach, reporter, fan, mascot, cheerleader, band member, security guard, concession worker, or janitor in the Comcast Center could have diagrammed "four."

In the second half, the play was completely ineffective.

Penn State also entered the game planning to defend Feenstra without any help from guards dropping down on the double team.

The first five minutes of the game proved that Feenstra's hands were average at best and that doubling with quick players like Wright, Harris and Amber Bland might have been an effective way of keeping Feenstra from having time to set up on the post.

The list goes on and on. Penn State's ineffective press and uncharacteristically sloppy 1-3-1 zone were repeatedly torched by the Flames, and even late in the game, down double digits, Portland stayed with the same, deliberate offense.

If you ask Green who won the game, he'd tell you God. If you ask Portland what lost the game, she'd say rebounding. If you ask me what lost the game for Penn State, I'd say their inability to adjust.