For a team, success is based on checks in the win column.

The best teams will tell you, though, that it's the work you put in that separates the decent teams from the elite.

And as much as some prima donnas may not want to admit it, that work comes in practice.

Luckily the men's volleyball team has grasped that notion already.

"We've been doing good things in practice," senior co-captain Matt Proper said. "We're reducing dumb errors and stupid mistakes that killed us at [University of California] Irvine."

Those mistakes led the Nittany Lions to fall in five games to the Anteaters last Friday and get swept in three games last Saturday.

The most critical of those mistakes were made in the team's transition game. They only managed to convert on 10-of-34 transition points and made seven errors.

That statistic doesn't sit well with the team.

"We were plus-three out of 34 opportunities; we've got to be better," Penn State men's volleyball coach Mark Pavlik said. "Especially with the experienced group we have."

The team realizes that it needs work in that area and has addressed it this week in practice.

"We've done drills focused completely on transition balls," senior co-captain Nate Meerstein said.

"Over and over, balls keep getting thrown in. It's tough on all of us. It's very demanding, but we have to get better at it."

Another tactic the team has instituted is what they call a "Board of Accountability." The board is up with all of the players' names and how many errors they make in hits, blocks and kills.

For every mistake a player makes, he has to do push-ups or sit-ups, depending on the severity of the mistake.

"We'll be using the board all year," Meerstein said. "Some people are doing 300 push-ups and sit-ups a day. That's been the biggest change."

All in all, though, the players appreciate having the board to push everyone on the roster.

"I like it because you can't just make an error and forget about it," Proper said. "Whenever practice is over, you see what you've done, and it means something."

With all the work that the team is putting in, it may seem as if the team has a long way to go to become an elite team, but that's not the case.

"Really, we don't have that many weaknesses per se," Pavlik said. "We just have to understand what we do well and have better decision making."

With this group of guys, anything less than a national championship in May would be a disappointment.

It's that determination that makes this team work that much harder.

"We have the potential to be the best team in the country," Pavlik said. "We just have to do the small things in practice, and we'll get there."