Standing with her hands on her hips, Brianne O'Rourke stared at the floor, clearly frustrated.

She was having the type of game that any point guard would love to forget.

It was early in the second half against No. 1 Duke, and Penn State's freshman point guard had just turned the ball over for the seventh time in only 21 minutes.

O'Rourke would finish the game with nine turnovers compared to four assists. After committing so many turnovers, O'Rourke realized she needed to adjust quickly to the college game.

"With as many turnovers as I had, it's unacceptable, especially being a point guard," she said.

Friday's game was O'Rourke's first collegiate game, and to make the situation even more difficult, O'Rourke was matched up against junior guard Lindsey Harding, a member of the 2005 All-ACC Defensive team.

Duke women's basketball coach Gail Goestenkors said her team planned to focus on O'Rourke, hoping to cause some freshman mistakes. The plan worked, as Harding applied full-court pressure all night, forcing O'Rourke to make several errors.

"I don't think that she's going to see a better defensive player than she saw tonight in Lindsey Harding," Goestenkors said. "She kept running their sets under extreme pressure, and I don't think she'll see that kind of pressure from any other point guard for the rest of the year."

While Goestenkors believes O'Rourke may have finished her toughest test in the first game of the season, Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland said her point guard's play has to improve.

"We had 20 turnovers, and unfortunately, Brianne had almost half of them herself. She was against one of the nation's [top] point guards, but we need to take care of the basketball," she said after the loss to Duke. "Brianne hung in there for a real, real long time tonight and did several nice things, defensively did some nice things herself when we went to pressure defense, and she'll learn from this. She will definitely learn from this."

O'Rourke played a much tighter game against Villanova yesterday, dishing out seven assists while only turning the ball over once. She added nine points, two rebounds and two steals.

"They weren't pressuring me as much, so I shouldn't have had turnovers," O'Rourke said, adding that some of her early jitters disappeared against the Wildcats. "After our first weekend of basketball, after our first two games, I feel more comfortable."

Still, Portland was not completely satisfied with O'Rourke's performance.

"It's wonderful that she didn't throw the ball out of bounds by herself," Portland said. "She wasn't pressured like she was at the Duke game. They just sat back.

"But she could've done that by herself if she really wanted to," Portland continued, glancing at O'Rourke. "Couldn't ya?"

Penn State has a very young team this year -- four freshmen saw time this weekend. And with a young point guard controlling the offense, Portland knows that early season frustration may strike again.

"Youth shows its head when you're not ready to play 40 minutes of basketball," she said.