Dennis Hohenshelt sat on a couch inside an unlit room in the Penn State women's volleyball office yesterday, a laptop resting on his knees.

His eyes darted back and forth from the screen and the TV. He was breaking down film from this weekend's matches and putting them on tapes.

It was just an hour from practice and Hohenshelt, Penn State's assistant coach, was in jeans and a golf shirt.

At that point, he should've been in practice attire: navy sweats and a T-shirt.

But he just sat there. He'd been there for most of the morning, he said. No need to move.

Practice was cancelled.

Instead, Hohenshelt and the No. 3 Nittany Lions were watching film. After suffering their first loss of season to No. 10 Wisconsin on Friday, the Lions (22-1, 11-1 Big Ten) took the day off to analyze what went wrong. They also were looking at what went right in Saturday night's win against No. 12 Minnesota.

One by one, players were called into head coach Russ Rose's office to view tapes by position. And Hohenshelt was the man behind the scenes breaking down and packaging the footage by position with a laptop that was connected with a wire to a recording machine, which put the clips on tape for the players.

"We try to show them some good, some bad, some plays they didn't make," Hohenshelt said. "And that way he'll go over it with them.

"It's in the middle of the season, it's a grind. I think the girls are a little bit tired. I think it's a good day to get our legs back from us. I think its more of a mental practice than anything else."

Against the Badgers, Penn State was slowed in all aspects, players and coaches said on Saturday. Hohenshelt said the team was "lounging around out there."

Two powerful hitters, who busted through the Lions' block and helped it to the upset, paced Wisconsin. Penn State's highly touted hitters under performed.

But against Minnesota, Hohenshelt said the team showed heart and battled through the grueling five-game set -- "one of the hardest matches we have played" -- to recapture the lead in the Big Ten.

"I've probably watched every contact over two nights," Hohenshelt said, "and it just reaffirms what we thought from the two matches."

During matches, one laptop is manipulated from the bench -- each contact attributed to the player who made it -- and connected wirelessly to another laptop with a camera that records the action. The camera-connected laptop contains clips of each play and is organized by players involved, rotation, which team is serving and a bunch of other specifics.

This ensures that each play is neatly organized and easy to be put on tape. And this, as it was yesterday, can be used as a practice tool.

"If you see what you're doing as you break down tape and you don't use it in practice, you're not going to walk right into a match and be able to do it," Hohenshelt said. "So I hope in practice that's where we'll start to see the things we're talking about in practice, and if that happens, I think it just naturally carries over into the match."