Coming off a WNIT championship season, Penn State went into the 1998 season hoping to use that as a steppingstone to the top of the league.

They did just that. The 1998-99 version of the Lady Lions was a well-rounded team that led the league in scoring margin and rebounding. The Lady Lions finished second in Big 10 scoring and defense. They were clearly the second best team in the league, behind national champion Purdue.

Rene Portland built her team around all-Big 10 players Helen Darling and Andrea Garner. Darling provided solid play at the all-important point guard spot while Garner was one of the top post players in the league. While the two made the expected progress between their sophomore and junior years, the real key to Penn State's improvement came in the stepped-up play of sophs Maren Walseth and Lisa Shepherd. Walseth moved in at power forward and provided a strong complement to Garner down low. The Lady Lions post play was thus good enough to lead the team to the top spot in the league in rebounding.

Shepherd proved to be a consistent long-range shooter and was largely responsible for PSU leading the Big 10 in three-point field goal percentage.  Her play forced Portland to take the difficult step of removing her daughter, Christine, from the starting line-up.

Defensively, Portland had her team playing the aggressive, pressing, generally frustrating style the Big 10 has grown to dislike.

Penn State had two major problems during the season, Purdue and lack of depth. The Lady Lions gave the Boilermakers all they could handle in their two games but Purdue, as usual, was able to make the big plays at crunch time and took PSU twice.

Portland only had 11 scholarship players and the lack of depth hurt her when one of her starters faltered. The dropoff was especially noticeably at point guard. Darling was not a consistent shooter and could be prone to turnovers, but there was no one on the bench to step in and pick up any slack.

 

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