Everyone remembers the shot, the Travis Parker putback with 8.5 seconds left, the kind of shot you think you can force in or out of the basket if you lean hard enough.

And the Illinois faithful who packed Assembly Hall, who came presumably to see the No. 6 Illini notch their 34th consecutive home victory with a win over the Nittany Lions, needed to lean a little harder. Final score: 66-65, Penn State.

The Feb. 4 victory is one of three Big Ten road wins for the Lions this season, second most in the conference. Only first-place Ohio State has a better road record (4-3) than Penn State (3-4), which has become a team of road warriors.

With only road games remaining on their schedule, including the Big Ten Tournament starting March 9, one has to ask: what's gotten into the Lions? For a turnaround this big, there isn't a simple answer.

"I wish I had some magical answer," Penn State coach Ed DeChellis said. "Coming into this year you guys were all saying, 'Why's your road record so bad?' We've played some pretty good people on the road and won a couple and played pretty close."

The Lions hadn't registered a single conference victory over the past four seasons (0-32). But Penn State now owns a better road than home (3-5) record in conference play and is no longer staying at the hotel where the maids short-sheet the beds.

DeChellis said the coaching staff has done nothing different and gave credit to a higher talent level and a more confident and aggressive attitude.

"We play with a little bit of an "us against the world"-kind of mentality," DeChellis said.

Success also comes from a streamlined approach. Sophomore guard Mike Walker said everybody is on the same page this year, whereas players were "just scattered all over the place" last year.

It even goes down to having a set routine: coaches collect the players' cell phones at 11 p.m. Walker said the players usually go to bed by 11:30, and get to sleep in a bit.

"It's almost easier to be more focused on the road than it is at home," Walker said. "When you're at home the night before the game, Coach DeChellis talks about having distractions on campus. People calling your cell phone at one in the morning from a frat or something like that."

Whatever the reasons, the end result is the same: the Lions now relish playing before zany crowds. They've gone into Assembly Hall and sent the orange-clad rowdies home blue. They broke their road losing streak at Northwestern and nearly upended Michigan State Jan. 28 in East Lansing.

Blowout losses at Ohio State (104-69) and at Wisconsin (82-62) indicate Penn State's flaws. But rather than continually having no chance, the team is a developing Atlas, ready to shoulder the weight.

"It feels good to go somewhere else and disappoint them at home," Parker said. "Especially people when they think about Penn State basketball, they laugh anyway. So, when we go into their home and beat them, we laughing on the way out."

Looking ahead

The Lions may not get a chance to laugh their way out of Indianapolis' Conseco Fieldhouse, site of this year's Big Ten Tournament. Gone is the vibe of the zany one-team crowd, which takes on a more neutral feel, according to Parker. If the team thrives on the us-against-the-world approach, they likely won't find it.

According to Walker, only about 8,000 people showed up to see Penn State play Ohio State in a first-round game last year -- hardly a packed gymnasium. Many of them, he said, were Illinois fans hoping to see the Lions score an upset.

And Penn State nearly did, building a 35-24 halftime lead that slipped away to a 72-69 defeat.

"It was better for us since it was neutral, we just went out there and just played," Parker said. "We weren't thinking about, 'OK, are fans gonna be here or are their fans too loud.' "

But by all indications, it's different this year. A more confident team, DeChellis said his players like that kind of atmosphere on the road. Walker said he hopes there's a larger Penn State fan base this year, but the way Penn State has been playing on the road will give opposing fan bases second thoughts about cheering for the Lions.

"This is what you come to Big Ten basketball for," DeChellis said. "You gotta win in somebody else's building and try to knock them off."

Even if that building belongs to the entire conference.