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Lady Lions Face Adversity In Season’s Final Stretch

It’s crunch time for Penn State women’s basketball. (Photo via GoPSUSports.com)

There’s not much easy about coaching or finding success with the Penn State women’s basketball team, and that’s OK because Carolyn Kieger appreciates hard work.

Maybe she just never knew it was going to be this hard.

Not long ago, the Lady Lions were 16-5 and on the precipice of some big moments, including their annual #Play4Kay Game benefitting Pa. Pink Zone, a matchup with Iowa and All-America guard Caitlin Clark and maybe even a 20-win regular season.

Those were heady times 14 days ago, and then so much changed. So quickly.

Without point guard Tay Valladay, who was lost for the season with an ACL injury, the Lady Lions have lost three in a row.

So they’re still sitting on 16 victories with five games remaining in the regular season. They’ll play three at home, starting with Thursday’s game against Illinois.

For Kieger, a point guard at Marquette who finished her career with strong statistics (1,276 points, 694 assists and 483 rebounds), certain numbers might not matter as much these days.

Still, there’s no doubt that Kieger needs a rebound — a team rebound. For someone without an official rebound in 18 years (she played her last college game in March 2006), that’s not an easy assignment.

Without Valladay — a graduate transfer who, like Kieger, played a Marquette (and then Virginia) before arriving Happy Valley — Penn State has embraced a “play for Tay” mentality. It sounds good, rhymes and everything, but it’s also off to an 0-3 start.

Mentalities can be elusive, tricky things. Teams need a shared one to succeed, but every player has honed their individual mindset differently along the way.

Some players come with seemingly innate confidence, an ability to let go of bad moments and display consistently positive body language. Others, well, things might not come as easily for them.

Two dozen games into the season, the Lady Lions probably are who they are, but Valladay was a big part of that makeup. So, maybe there’s time for a little bit of reinvention, along with some emphasis and intervention from the coach.

The team’s #LionMentality (live with pride, hunt, that kind of thing) has been useful this season, and Kieger knows every coach and every team in every sport has their own version of the mantra — all referencing physical, mental or emotional toughness.

It’s the coach’s job to develop that more than any single gameplan.

“Some players are born with it, and some it has to be groomed and taught. You have to pull it out of them,” Kieger says. “It’s the responsibility of myself and the staff to all have a collective, shared identity.”

It’s hard work, every single day work, to make that happen.

It’s just getting down to single-digit number of days for the Lady Lions to make it work and translate into victories so a successful season (the team sits 26th in the latest NET Ranking, positioning it safely for an NCAA Tournament berth) actually ends with some success.

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Steve Sampsell
Steve Sampsell is a graduate of Penn State and co-host of Stuff Somers Says with Steve. You can email Steve at steve@stuffsomerssays.com. Follow Steve on Twitter @SteveSampsell.

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