From a first-round win against St. Francis to Saturday's Sweet 16 loss, Taylor and the Cyclones were worth watching.

On paper, they seemed pretty even. Once they got on the floor, they proved they were. The difference ended up being a great, hustling putback basket by Penn State point guard Helen Darling and a shot that wouldn't drop for Iowa State's Megan Taylor.

No. 2 seed Penn State beat No. 3 Iowa State 66-65 in the best game of a long day of women's hoops Saturday.

Here's what Darling had to say afterward: "I really don't remember the final rebound. All I saw was the ball go up in the air and land in my arms. I really don't remember the end of the game."

Taylor's recollection was a little better.

"I had the ball in my hands, and then it was not there," she said of the rebound on Andrea Garner's missed shot with 18 seconds left in the game and Penn State down by one. "I think I did. I guess I'd like to see the tape."

If you watched Taylor during the season, as those of us who live in Big 12 country do, you think she gets her hands on the ball and on more rebounds and tips and scrambles than anybody on earth.

It's like this -- she'll take a 3-pointer from the left side of the key, and then you see her on the right side of the basket tipping up the rebound and trying to get ahold of it. The kid is all over the place. She's 5 feet 10 and it's like she's in six places at once. If there's a garbage rebound to be had, you just have a feeling Taylor is going to get it.

Yet this time, she didn't. Darling did. And if she doesn't remember it, that's OK. She can watch that highlight tape a few times showing how she kept Penn State alive in this tournament.

It was one of 11 rebounds Darling got on the night in what was a standout performance.

"She did a great job," Iowa State's Angie Welle said. "For a person who likes to pass, I'm pretty sure she had no doubt in her mind that she would shoot."

Of course, it wasn't over there -- Iowa State still had the ball and about 13 seconds. Stacy Frese drove down and dished to Taylor. Frese later said she thought she put Taylor in a bad position and that she probably should have just gone on into the basket.

But if she watches the tape, she'll probably see that Taylor had a nice look from the free-throw line that just didn't go in.

"It's a shot I've made so many times," Taylor said afterward.

And, incidentally, if you're wondering if there were a lot of tears after this game, there weren't as many as you might think. For one thing, you can sometimes tell when coaches have done something to soothe the pain of their players by whatever they say in the privacy of the locker room immediately afterwards.

Based on the attitudes of the Iowa State players, Bill Fennelly did that.

Kids never fail to amaze me with how mature they are sometimes. You want to tell their fans how proud they should be of them as people for representing their school with such integrity. The Iowa State kids, in spite of their disappointment, gave good, thoughtful answers to the media afterward.

That is not so easy to do when your college basketball career has just ended, as did Frese's and Desiree Francis' and Monica Huelman's. And it's not so easy to do when you missed the last shot.

Taylor was the one designated for the random drug test afterward -- can you even believe that? -- and then she came back and addressed the whole final few seconds and what the loss meant to Iowa State.

"I think this year was our best chance to make it to the Final Four," she said. "And we're all such good friends, it's hard to imagine them (the seniors) not being here anymore."

Putbacks