Coach Rene Portland is experiencing the perils of a tough non-conference schedule. Yesterday Villanova handed Penn State its third straight loss.

"I am kind of shocked," said Nova coach Harry Perretta. "I didn't think we would execute as well as we did because you just need games. You need to learn how to play. When the game was slow, we were OK. When the game was fast, we weren't OK. We're usually OK if it's slow. And we made some tough shots under duress today. Jenna Viani made one. Jackie made a couple. Kate made a couple of amazing shots."

Coach Portland put the blame squarely on her players' shoulders. "My attitude is 'get into the gym.' That's their responsibility. As coaches, we can only create the plays to get them good looks. It's their responsibility to put the ball in the basket and shooting is repetition."

About the Lions' failure to defend the Cats' three-point shooting: "It's not like we didn't tell our kids. That's the frustrating part of coaching. As a coach you take the brunt. It's not like we didn't tell them. We did tell them. I guess we didn't tell them enough."

Still, all is not lost for Rene. She does have a groupie writing her love notes on the web. Slightly illiterate ("failure would be eminent"?), but still very sexy.