As Wisconsin sophomore guard Jolene Anderson scorched Penn State for her third three-pointer of the game with only a couple ticks elapsed in the second half, Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland searched for an answer.

Portland eyed freshman guard Mashea Williams, who had her right knee tightly wrapped in a brace, to envelop the Badgers' top scorer.

Under the weight of a shaky leg, one Williams described as "on and off", Portland rested her hopes. As unlikely as it might have seemed, Williams' response was all she could have asked for and more.

"Our goal was to hold Anderson to 15, so we did it," Portland said as she pointed to her left at Williams. "She was really the one that shut her down."

The Lady Lions trailed 31-29 when Williams was pinned to Anderson, who had 13 points after the trey. Anybody who took a bathroom break with Penn State up 56-45 with 6:05 left in the second half missed Anderson's last points of the game.

In the process of shutting down Wisconsin's main source of offensive firepower, Williams also poured in a career-high 20-point performance. Williams used the same wild shot selection, including cross-over dribbles and multiple spin moves, to make Anderson red in the face.

Anderson's gassed expression late in the game gave Williams a good chuckle.

"She was tired, you could see it in her face," Williams said. "I was kind of laughing. I just knew I had to keep going at her."

Anderson's frustrations gave Williams a bit of relief from her recent troubles. Since spraining her knee in the first minute of the Old Dominion game on Nov. 29, Williams had not been the scorer that Portland had billed as equal partners in the "Brianne and Mashea Show" with freshman point guard Brianne O'Rourke.

Before the injury, Williams joined O'Rourke as the Lady Lions' lone threats to penetrate. Williams displayed a youthful aggressiveness to crash to the basket, averaging 11 points per game.

The injury instead showed her numbers and consistency crash. After missing three games rehabilitating the knee, Williams returned to see her production dip to 7.4 points per game. In Penn State's third Big Ten loss of the season on Jan. 5 against Michigan State, Williams registered zero points in 12 minutes of action.

These performances cast doubt in Williams' mind if she could still execute the whirling dervish to the hole.

"I wasn't sure if I could do some of those spin moves," Williams said. "But I guess I could."

The concept of attack, attack, attack, was the mantra when Portland unleashed Williams upon the Badgers on defense. With Anderson forced to run the point, Williams denied Wisconsin's top scorer the ball once she brought it up the court.

Once Portland signaled in the pressure defense in the second half, Anderson was exhausted and hard-pressed to score.

"She denied me the ball wherever I was," Anderson said with a helpless expression.

This was precisely as Portland planned. She then pointed out the obvious.

"She can't score if she doesn't have the ball," Portland said.

Anderson's facial expressions during the full-court press let Williams know that the Badgers had the life sucked out of them.

"We were attacking them, which was great. They didn't really want to attack back," Williams said. "Once their coach called a timeout, I knew we had them."

Badger head coach Lisa Stone was visibly frustrated after the game with her team's play against the Lady Lions' pressure defense. With her team sitting at 1-3 in the Big Ten like Penn State, Stone wished she had some more answers for her teams' lack of success. Portland found her answer in Williams.

"They are a good team, searching for answers, just like us," Stone said. "They found it in the second half today."