If there's one thing this team has stressed of late, it's the ability to rebound.

Thanks to Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland's emphasis on the battle of the boards, the Lady Lions have cleaned up underneath, coming up with more misdirected shots than their opponents in the last four games.

But Sunday's win against Northwestern extends beyond boxing out in the paint. Instead, the players have had to turn their backs to those that said this team may be one of the worst ever to don the blue and white under Portland.

And then there's been the allegations raised against Portland by former players, which the Lady Lions have tried not to focus on.

"To be honest, we don't think about it," junior captain Amanda Brown said about the distractions earlier in the year.

But no, the Lady Lions buckled down and beat a team they were supposed to in a game in which the loser would be left for dead in the Big Ten's gutter.

And beating the perennial conference punching bag has not come easy, as last year's tournament-bound Penn State team fell on the road by double digits.

"You can beat the last-place team by a little, or you can beat the last-place team by a lot," Portland said. "You can say we beat a last-place team, but that's how it's supposed to be and it was nice."

The win also ended a Big Ten road losing streak that dated back to five of last year. Ending the skid at is all the more impressive considering that just three days earlier the Lady Lions had gotten embarrassed by Purdue, 70-56.

Northwestern won't save Penn State from its first sub-.500 season under Portland, but the 26th year coach has refused to lower her standards. She's seen rebuilding years before and won in all of them.

The win itself may not mean much. It was essentially meaningless in terms of postseason goals that were pipe dreams from the start, but the way it came is indicative of the tenacity that Portland has tried to implore in probably one of her most difficult seasons as a coach.

Granted, Northwestern handed them the game, shooting 20 percent from the floor. As disturbing as it sounds, Penn State kept the game closer than it could have been, as the turnover problems persisted and Brown again found foul trouble early, playing just one minute in the first half.

But Portland likes to cite the positives, even in the miserable losses this season.

Sunday, there were many.

Freshman Brianne O'Rourke committed nearly half of the team's 17 turnovers, but she also had a career-high 15 points. Normally, it would take her about a week-and-a-half to accumulate that total, as she averaged around five points a game.

Then there's walk-on redshirt sophomore Brittany Remmey. With only nine players on the roster, Portland held open tryouts, seeking mainly to fill a chair and eat up garbage-time minutes, which she had done exceptionally well.

In Evanston, Ill., the former club team member scored a career-high four points on the afternoon, doubling her output on the season. While it may not sound like much, back in August eight points is eight more than she ever thought she would have had in a Lady Lion uniform.

There probably will not be too many positive things for this team the remainder of the season, but every time something goes wrong, expect the team to continue to try to rebound.

Besides, the Lady Lions still get Northwestern at home on Feb. 23.