During one of its final practices in the Bryce Jordan Center before hitting the road yesterday, Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland called for a halt in activity.

"What makes you win here? Is it you, or is it the brick and mortar of this building?" she asked her team.

Junior guard Kam Gissendanner confidently fired back: "It's us."

Indeed, the Lady Lions (11-11, 4-5 Big Ten) boast an impressive 9-1 home record, but their production away from the Jordan Center is noteworthy for a lesser reason.

But this road trip is a little different. When the Lady Lions lace up their sneakers at 8 tonight in East Lansing, Mich., they'll be countered with a Michigan State team they knocked from the top 25 only one week ago.

"We beat this team once, heck, we can do it again," freshman guard Meggan Quinn said. "Just do it in a different place, you know? It's like Rene said yesterday. If we took this team to the IM Building, we would beat them. So we just can't figure out what it is with playing away. But this would be a good statement for us to make in the Big Ten."

Quinn hopes her team can make that assertion as readily as Gissendanner retorted to Portland's query.

The Lady Lions controlled the flow of play in their last meeting with the Spartans (15-6, 6-2), and a quick start at the Breslin Center would create opportunities they haven't seen in a Big Ten away game all season.

Gissendanner and senior center Amanda Brown must continue to stay hot against conference opponents. Gissendanner leads the team with an 18.0 scoring average in Big Ten play, while Brown is coming off her second consecutive Big Ten Player of the Week award, including a 27 point, 14 rebound effort against the Spartans.

Quinn said that the two leaders have been busy energizing their teammates all week.

"We have to make our own energy," Quinn said. "The crowd gets fired up, we get fired up. Well, we don't have that huge crowd, so we just gotta be excited for each other. And I think that'll go a long way."

Last week, Brown and fellow post Charity Renfro shut down Michigan State's 6-foot-9 freshman star Allyssa DeHaan. Early foul trouble limited DeHaan's minutes and she was unable to get into rhythm, finishing with five points on 2-of-10 shooting. However, Aisha Jefferson filled in admirably off the bench with 15 points.

Penn State will be getting their own boost, as sophomore guard Mashea Williams will be able to play after missing two games with a viral infection. Williams will provide depth in a backcourt that has seen the recent emergence of Quinn and a hot streak from point guard Brianne O'Rourke.

"Let's stop screwing around and go win a game away," Portland said. "We know that [Michigan State] practiced at 6 o'clock in the morning the day after they lost to us, because our kids are friends. So they took our loss hard.

We have to be really cognizant of that going into this game."

Notes: Brown is late to practice on Wednesdays because of her organic chemistry class. When she arrived yesterday, all her teammates were wearing her No. 15 jersey in pink, which the Lady Lions plan to distribute to fans on Sunday for their 'Think Pink' breast cancer awareness promotion. Both Penn State and Wisconsin plan to wear pink uniforms during the game. "Everyone's saying 'Think Pink.' Yesterday at practice, I was saying 'Think Green,' at least until Thursday or Friday," Portland joked.