With a look of obvious concern on her face, Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland admitted she was trying to figure out a way to contain her.

Xavier freshman forward Amber Harris amazed and baffled Portland on tape with her size, speed and versatility. On paper, she looked unstoppable. She entered the game as the Musketeers' leader in points, rebounds, blocks and field goal percentage.

On the court last night, however, the Lady Lions effectively held the young superstar in check.

"She loves to go baseline on both sides, and if you make her go middle, she tries to trick you. She'll look like she's going middle and she'll spin back to baseline," Portland said. "We were gonna give up some points, but we had to stay to the defensive help that we could."

Harris, 2006's top-rated recruit by the Blue Star Index, posted a career-low 10 points on 5-for-16 shooting and turned the ball over seven times while being aggressively defended by the Penn State trio of Amanda Brown, Charity Renfro and Rashida Mark. To make matters worse for the Musketeers, Brown aggravated Harris on both sides of the ball, tallying 29 points with the elite shot-blocker constantly in her face.

"They started to crowd her a little bit on the block," Xavier head coach Kevin McGuff said. "It frustrated her and she did not do a good job reacting to it."

In the first half, Harris showed why she was a coveted blue-chipper, leaving Renfro in her rearview mirror with a vicious crossover and converting several acrobatic shots in the post, which is quickly becoming her calling card. But after halftime, Harris was forced into multiple traveling violations and bad shots, as she was held scoreless in the second half and overtime.

"We focused a lot on her, obviously, because she's a great player," Brown said. "We focused a lot on keeping her off the block and not letting her go baseline ... In the second half, that was something that I didn't let her do."

Though all eyes were on the imposing presence of Harris, Penn State's own star freshman, Tyra Grant, continued her dominance at home, outshining her with 20 points and only one turnover.

"I never thought, 'It's me going against Amber,' or anything like that," Grant said. "I'm just focused on getting the win. I can score two points, as long as we win. I don't care."

Grant almost had some competition from Harris in the Big Ten Freshman of the Year. Harris' original plan would have allowed her to grace the court at the Bryce Jordan Center annually, having initially committed to Big Ten rival Purdue. However, a last-minute change to the coaching staff landed her in Cincinnati.

"I'm glad she's at Xavier and not at Purdue," Portland joked.