Don't expect to hear Whitney Houston singing the national anthem accompanied by a military fly-over anytime soon before a Penn State basketball game.

After all, when the Nittany Lions (5-2) take on Hartford (3-3) at 7:30 tonight at the Bryce Jordan Center, it's simply another non-conference game against a school from a small-time directional conference (America East).

But ask head coach Ed DeChellis what this game means for the Hawks and he responds even quicker than those F-16s cruising in the skies over Pasadena.

"It's their Super Bowl," DeChellis exclaimed. "A team from their league [Stony Brook] already came in here and won, so why don't they think they can come in here and win?"

DeChellis has as much experience with the underdog role as anyone. During his previous coaching stint at East Tennessee State, his Buccaneers routinely forced powerhouse programs to sweat.

Most notably was a narrow three-point loss to No. 2 seed Wake Forest in the 2003 NCAA Tournament a couple years back.

He knows what it's like to be a small school entering a big-time arena in search of an upset. He just has some trouble conveying the message to his players.

"You try to motivate your kids, you try to prepare them that this game means everything to the other team. And human nature is, 'Well, maybe it doesn't mean as much to us right now,' " DeChellis said.

"But, it should, but kids are kids, it's human nature. The kids read the papers, they look at magazines; they see where teams are picked and they think it's going to be an easy night and that's when it comes up and bites you."

The Lions have narrowly avoided being bitten multiple times this season. But DeChellis explains that this team will always be in a lot of close contests.

"I never thought we were going to be a team that was just going to go out and blow somebody out by 30 points. We're a team that can work and work and work, and yeah, we can win by more than we have been," DeChellis said.

"Would we like to win by more? Yeah, it'd be a little easier on me and we could get a few guys some time, but I don't know if that's our makeup right now. We haven't been able to press [defensively] where we could force turnovers and get easy baskets. Everything, right now, has been really kind of manufactured."

Senior point guard Ben Luber, meanwhile, contends that the Lions must pick up the defensive play if Penn State wants to post some blowout victories.

"It starts with defense, we haven't been playing great defense and that's going to carry over," Luber said. "Offensively, I think we're doing OK, we still could shoot the ball better, but our defense at the beginning of games needs to set the tone."

The tone that has been set most of the year has been sluggish.

The Lions have often lacked emotion when taking the court against their lesser opponents. The team has started slow on more than one occasion, and that disgusts forward Jamelle Cornley.

"We can't have that, we can't come in here just thinking, 'Well we're gonna go ahead and get by,' " Cornley said. "We have to come out with the killer instinct and take care of business early on."

And Cornley will be the one to instill the killer instinct in his team. The sophomore has become the emotional leader of the team, and when the Lions don't play up to par, he wants the blame.

"I try to take that [lack of emotion] personal and try to take it upon myself to say, 'That won't happen again, I'm gonna make sure my team won't come out like that,' " Cornley said, reflecting on Penn State's emotionless win over Morgan State last Saturday.

"And if I'm going to have to go back to screaming and yelling and everything to get everyone pumped up, then maybe that's what's best."