While the rest of the Penn State women's volleyball team took its normal jog around Rec Hall to begin practice Wednesday afternoon, freshman setter Alisha Glass and some of her teammates stayed behind to finish a drill they had started at least 30 minutes earlier.

Before practice began, Glass and the Nittany Lions' middle hitters took to the South Gym court, intending to improve the movement of the ball from the setter to her hitters. They were done about 80 repetitions later, just after the rest of the team returned from its run.

"There's always something to work on," sophomore libero Roberta Holehouse said as she watched the pre-practice scene.

Even with two matches upcoming against Indiana and Purdue, two teams Penn State has traditionally defeated with regularity (32-0 vs. Indiana, 34-5 vs. Purdue), the No. 2-ranked Lions wanted to make sure that further success would not come by accident.

Penn State (13-0, 2-0 Big Ten) plays the Hoosiers tonight at 7 in Bloomington, Ind., before traveling 110 miles south to face No. 11 Purdue at 7 p.m. tomorrow in West Lafayette.

"It's just a tough trip," head coach Russ Rose said. "You play one night and you get in your vehicle and you drive to the next facility and you play a team that's comfortable at home. And certainly we've found over the course of our time in the Big Ten that opposing teams have their largest crowds when we come to town."

The Boilermakers (12-1, 2-0) and Hoosiers (10-4, 1-1) both won on the road last weekend at then-No. 19 Michigan. Purdue also defeated Michigan State. Indiana lost to the Spartans in four games.

"We know how hard it is to win at Michigan and Michigan State because we've lost at those places before, so it's certainly an indication that both [Indiana and Purdue] are playing very well at this point in time," Rose said.

Purdue, one spot from being ranked in the nation's top-10, uses the "6-2" offense, which features two setters instead of one. In Penn State's "5-1" scheme, Glass plays the setter role.

Rose considered employing the "6-2" early this season, but Glass has since established herself accordingly.

The Boilermakers are the highest ranked opponent the Lions will face since Sept. 8 when they played and defeated then-No. 5 Texas, and have several players on the roster that Penn State recruited out of high school, including freshman setter Sam Gray.

Gray and the rest of the Boilermakers have lost just once this season, to the currently No. 5 ranked Southern California. However, the Lions have defeated Purdue in each of their last 33 meetings and have never lost to Indiana in 32 matches.

"All it means is that I've been around for a lot of those matches," Rose said, "But these players haven't been around for a lot of those matches."

Which is why a little extra work during practice this week was not out of the question.

"It's the same thing," Holehouse said. "We take every team seriously and we're not going to worry about one team more than another one."