Not much was said about Purdue this week, other than some comments on forward Carl Landry's attributes and the obvious acknowledgement that the Boilermakers are tomorrow's opponent.

After last Saturday's loss at lowly Minnesota, the Penn State men's basketball team (10-10, 1-6 Big Ten) has been defeated in six straight games by six different teams, enough to make any team focus on itself instead of the opposition.

"It's frustrating," senior guard David "Mooch" Jackson said. "Once things go bad everybody likes to point fingers, but I think we're staying together, trying to find a way out of the slump we're in."

The Nittany Lions preseason goal of making the postseason has become increasingly unlikely during its longest losing streak in two seasons.

The intent now is to win one game, any game.

Tomorrow at noon at the Bryce Jordan Center, Penn State plays Purdue (14-7, 3-4), which started the Lions' losing streak on Jan. 6 with a 64-60 win.

"It's hard because at the beginning of the year we had such high expectations," sophomore forward Jamelle Cornley said. "We thought we had a good chance of finishing in the top half of the conference, and we felt as if we would be able to get to the NCAA tournament without this struggle."

Since the last time it played Purdue, Penn State has given up an average of 79.2 points per game. The lowest allowed during the five game span being 65 to Minnesota, a team that has averaged just 51.3 points in its last seven games.

Offensively, the statistics haven't been much better. The Lions have shot 39 percent from the field in the past five games, including a season low 21-for-60 against Iowa last Wednesday, well below their season average of 45 percent.

"We're not guarding very well. We're not shooting the ball very well," Penn State coach Ed DeChellis said this week.

The result has been an average margin of defeat of 13.6 points during the losing streak, and increased scrutiny from all sorts of directions.

"You walk around and you see papers and people are asking what's happening," Cornley said. "You get phone calls from family asking what's happening."

For Cornley, the Big Dance may be out of the picture, but it's not hard for one of the more emotional players on the team to find motivation.

"Our pressure is being able to bounce back, and see how we're going to respond to all the adversity of these last six games," he said. "It's very important for us to get some type of win. An ugly win, we'll take it. A one-point win, we'll take it."

Added Jackson: "Nobody plays to lose. You go in every game thinking about a win. ... We're still the same trying to win each game."

Injury report

Redshirt freshman guard Maxwell Dubois sprained his left knee during practice Wednesday. The injury is not expected to require surgery, but Dubois is likely to be out for three to six weeks.

Dubois has played in just six games this season. Last year, he suffered a stress fracture in his left foot in the sixth game of the season and was red-shirted.