In the past, Penn State men's basketball has been dependant on guard play. With undersized players on the interior, the Lions had to look outside to find points. When the three-pointers wouldn't fall, the Lions usually lost.

When the long-range shots weren't falling last night -- Penn State shot 22% from behind the arc -- the Lions stepped up their rebounding and defense.

Penn State crashed the boards to out-rebound UNC Greensboro by 13 while forcing 14 turnovers to pull away with a 69-56 win over the visiting Spartans.

"I challenged them at halftime to go rebound the ball," head coach Ed DeChellis said. "I thought we just overall rebounded the ball in the second half and I think that was the difference."

The turnovers and rebounds allowed the Lions to work the ball in transition for 13 points. Penn State also made the UNCG turnovers hurt even more by converting them into 23 points.

And when the Lions didn't have opportunities to run, they settled into their half-court offense and fed the ball to sophomore Jamelle Cornley. The offense ran through Cornley the entire second half, as he recorded his second double-double of the season and third of his career by pouring in a career-high 23 points and grabbing 11 rebounds.

Senior Ben Luber added 13 points and four assists to the Penn State cause. But, Luber's biggest contribution to the win might have been his six rebounds.

"Defensively, definitely we need to rebound more as guards," Luber said. "And tonight we did a good job of that."

On the defensive end, the Lions were not able to stop UNCG star forward Kyle Hines, but then again, no one has. Hines finished the night with 20 points, but the Penn State defense did a yeoman's job of at least containing the top candidate for Southern Conference Player of the Year.

Instead, the Lions defense focused on fellow All-Conference guard Ricky Hickman.

"I didn't think we could take both guys out," DeChellis said. "We really wanted to guard the perimeter. I know [Hines] scores, he had 38 the other night against Marshall. But, I watched the tape, and he's scoring and they still lose. I'd rather take my chances and make him make shots inside and try to take the perimeter out, I don't want to give up threes."

When the outside shooting went cold, this Penn State team did something rarely seen around the Bryce Jordan Center -- it went inside and found a different way to win the game. DeChellis was encouraged and hopes to see this same theme repeated night in and night out.

"You can't just do it one night, you have to bring it every night," DeChellis said. "Players got to play every night."