It's not so much what the Lady Lions have attained -- a .500 record -- against Iowa on Sunday, but the manner in which they reached that mark that's important. They had their best ball-handling effort of the year, committing only nine turnovers.

And don't think the players and coaches didn't notice.

After Sunday's game, Penn State head coach Rene Portland was notified about the low turnover statistic, but butted in before the question was asked.

"We had six at halftime," she interrupted.

Do the math and that's only three turnovers in the second half, promising for a Penn State team (11-11, 4-5 Big Ten) that has seen substantially larger numbers in that statistical column.

Penn State is averaging 17.7 turnovers per game this season, a number that has been augmented thanks to 10 games when the Lady Lions lost possession 20 or more times. The low-end outliers, however, are less frequent. Penn State has only played six games with 15 or fewer turnovers.

Curiously, though, there seems to be no real correlation between the number of turnovers and outcome of the game. In games they've won, the Lady Lions are averaging 17.6 turnovers per game. In games they've lost, the Lady Lions are averaging 17.7 turnovers per game.

In fact, in perhaps their biggest win of the season, last Thursday night against No. 23 Michigan State -- the first win over a ranked opponent in a year -- the Lady Lions had a season-high 25 turnovers.

And during the season-opening four-game winning streak, Penn State averaged 18.5 turnovers.

That's not an argument to brush by turning the ball over. As the statistics show, turnovers have haunted the Lady Lions at times. Against current No. 1 Duke, Penn State had 23. Penn State had 20-plus turnover performances in losses to Rutgers (21), Saint Francis (20), Ole Miss (21) and Minnesota (20).

"When we have all those turnovers, it's like we're shooting ourselves in the foot most of the time," junior guard Kam Gissendanner said. "When we have less than 10 turnovers in a game, that's pretty awesome. That's been a big focus of ours, is to take care of the ball."

Reducing turnovers has been something that the coaching staff has harped on all season. And the upshot of protecting the ball was seen on Sunday.

"We stress a lot of taking care of the ball," freshman guard Meggan Quinn said. "That's one of our keys pretty much every game we go into. Taking care of the ball is huge, especially in practice ... We've been taking care of the ball very well in practice, and that obviously reflected in our performance [Sunday]."