Big Ten followers looked at newspaper pages a little more closely yesterday, focused on the words of frustrated Indiana men's basketball coach Mike Davis.

But when the Penn State starting five set up at the Bryce Jordan Center for a tip-off vs. Indiana at 8 tonight, their focus will be on the five men in red and white jerseys. Because for the first time in a while, they can look them squarely in the eye.

The Nittany Lions (11-11, 3-8 Big Ten) and Hoosiers (13-8, 5-5 Big Ten) sit on comparable ground. Both have lost five of their last six games, including two in a row. Each got to this point in a different way, but it's a critical date nonetheless.

Indiana tumbled out of the AP Top 25 for the first time all season this week, and Penn State continues to try not to slip down the Big Ten basement stairs. There's some balancing to be done, and Penn State coach Ed DeChellis doesn't have a formula to do so except to level with his players.

"The approach is honesty," DeChellis said. "I'm not into playing certain mind games."

Instead, he shows the Lions what they've done wrong and the reasons for their second-half collapses of late. And then he asks questions of himself, like how hard to practice and how long?

He said you can't wear players out, but at the same time you need to get a certain "competitive spirit" in practice to be able to play that way. To come out with a win tonight, to grab a foothold on the stairs, he needs to strike a balance.

"You're always concerned about what's too much, and what's not enough," DeChellis said. "Where is the bounds?"

Within the bounds of the hardcourt tonight, the Lions can look the Hoosiers in the eyes without using stilts. Indiana's one of the few teams in the conference that doesn't hold a great size advantage at any projected starting position.

Four of the five starting players on what DeChellis said wasn't an "overly big" team stand under 6-foot-5. That compares well with the 6-foot-5 average height of the Lions' backcourt. Both teams also have a 6-foot-10 freshman reserve -- the Hoosiers' Australian Ben Allen, and Penn State's Serbian Milos Bogetic.

But it's that fifth Indiana starter, 6-foot-8 senior Marco Killingsworth, who might cause the Lions fits with his girth (268 pounds), 18.3 points per game and 8.1 rebounds per game.

"He's just a force inside," DeChellis said. "I don't think anybody's really done a great great job of handling him."

DeChellis said he's going to try to limit Killingsworth's touches and get a body on him for rebounds, something the Lions' last two opponents did far better, grabbing 36 more. They'll run primarily zone defense, in which the Lions have struggled to find the opposition's mysterious hot shooter.

Indiana certainly is mysterious in that department, tied for second in the conference in 3-point shots made per game. But its just 8-of-39 away from Bloomington since Jan. 29.

"We'll try to mix things up again and try to see what we can do defensively and try to keep them off-balance," DeChellis said.

And in doing so, perhaps they'll look the Hoosiers square in the eyes and find some balance of their own.