The 2006 Penn State women's basketball team is a bit of an anomaly.

The most striking similarity between this year's squad and last year's forgettable 13-16 team is actually the most important difference.

The Lady Lions will feature the same five names in the starting lineup, and although the names haven't changed, the players certainly have.

"[Last season] was kinda embarrassing," sophomore point guard Brianne O'Rourke said. "This was our worst Lady Lion team in [Coach Portland's] history, so it really motivates us, actually, to just get away from that last year and start fresh, start new. We have the same team back, so we're ready to go."

Even though the roster contains only two seniors, forwards Amanda Brown and Charity Renfro, the underclassmen are more than prepared for the season ahead. Every returning player saw court time last season.

Perhaps the player who most benefited from her experience in 2005 was O'Rourke. She amassed the most playing time of any other player on the team last season and played for the Big Ten Foreign Tour Team this past summer.

When she wasn't on the court, O'Rourke worked to incorporate the 3-point shot into her offensive game. She even paid her own expenses to work on agility and conditioning with a coach in Tennessee. This valuable experience and improvement has helped her step into her role as a leader and scoring threat for the team.

"She needed to be able to open things up for us, so her three-point shooting has really grown," head coach Rene Portland said. "If she does that early as a sophomore, she will really be faster than any other point guard I've had to give me scoring from that position this early in her career. So, she's not only on target to do great things, but she's on target to be one of the best. I think we'll see a big difference when she walks on the floor on the 10th of November."

O'Rourke wasn't the only player to impress Portland with her offseason work ethic and improvement. Brown played for her native Canada in the FIBA World Championships. Instead of taking time off like she did last year, Brown immediately flew to State College to begin training with the team once her season with the Canadian National team ended.

Last year, Brown was only one of two players in the Big Ten to rank in the top 10 in the conference in scoring, rebounding, field goal percentage and blocks. Not only do her stats show that she is a leader on the court, but this year she has also taken on the role of an emotional catalyst needed by a team struggling to overcome the weight of last year's season.

"When she speaks up she brings us together," Renfro said. "She calms us down. She tells us what we need to do. She's like our mother figure as far as letting us know and explaining things to us."

In addition to bringing a veteran group to the court this season, the team has a more physically fit lineup. After coming up short in close games last season, Portland emphasized the need to finish the victories. With the addition of three freshmen to provide depth, and a rigorous summer workout schedule of swimming, weight lifting and running, Portland hopes that the conditioning of her team will be another benefit.

The summer also provided a chance for the Lions to learn lessons from last year's disappointing season. The players knew that this season would look similar on paper to the previous one, but also hope that at the same time it could be vastly different.

"Nothing was broken last year, it just needed to get broken in," Portland said.

"Those kids got broken into the Big Ten, and the type of schedule, the type of arena, the type of academic pressures and the type of everything that happened to them as student-athletes. And so we got broken in. It's just like a good leather coat. We feel like we're better the second year than we did the first year."