[Bobby O'Shea]

Time once again to renew our journey, with some more key questions for the days ahead as we continue our crusade in search of pointspread winners. And if we can resolve the following mysteries this week some buried treasure(s) may await –

PRINCETON at PENN (February 14)

When Princeton travels to Penn on Tuesday night it will look like Old Times in the Ivy league – the two are once again atop the conference standings, and a win by the visiting Tigers would create a tie. But as traditional as that appears, who would have believed it a month ago?

Princeton may be 5-1 in Ivy play, but the Tigers are just 7-12 overall, and the non-conference schedule produced some horrific results – the bottom being a ridiculous 41-21 home loss to Monmouth, and they also lost at Jadwyn Gym to the likes of Lafayette and Carnegie-Mellon when they could not reach 50 points either time. That means time to search for just why this turn-around took place. Has Princeton merely being taking advantage of the rest of the Ivy League being down this season, or has Joe Scott’s squad again truly found “The Eye of the Tiger”?

WAKE FOREST at DUKE (February 14)

Duke cemented its position atop the A.C.C. with clutch road wins at North Carolina and Maryland last week, exploding for 183 points. It can genuinely create the appearance that Coach K has his team peaking at the right time. Or not. Duke had an almost perfect offensive game at Maryland - in addition to J. J. Redick and Sheldon Williams accounting for 61 points, Greg Paulus and Sean Dockery combined to hit 7-9 3-pointers, and as a team they were 27-32 from the free throw line. Yet with all of that happening, they covered the spread at Maryland by only 1.5 points.

The offensive explosion was the silver lining in a dark cloud that continues to grow – over the last nine games the Blue Devil defense has allowed 77.6 per outing in regulation, on 47.6 percent shooting, and they have been out-rebounded by 45. It shows the real depth issues that they are facing, and in winning at North Carolina and Maryland they got a combined total of just four bench points. Have the abilities of Redick and Williams taking Duke to a truly special level? Or will that lack of depth cause them to have a Devil of a time staying fresh until the Big Dance?

SEATTLE at MILWAUKEE (February 14)
SEATTLE at MINNESOTA (February 15)

Bob Hill is not faring any better than Bob Weiss in Seattle, where LY’s playoff run may be turning quickly into a lost season. But it is one thing for a season to get away on the floor, and it is another entirely to announce it up front. This was heard from the Sonic coach over the weekend -
“I think if we don’t make any trades, or we don’t change the team at all, you have to look at playing Johan (Petro) and Robert (Swift) and throwing them the ball, putting sets in for them, developing them even further, getting Damien (Wilkins) on the floor even more. I think that is the direction we would go, total development of the younger guys.”

That is not exactly what veteran players want to hear, especially this early in the sshcedule. It makes these two road games before the All Star break a quick test of what kind of will they have. Will the veterans play with passion to keep their hopes for this season alive? Or will the measurements of their effort show us something far less than a Sonic Boom?

MISSOURI at KANSAS (February 18)

The Quinn Snyder implosion at Missouri played out about the way that we speculated last week, except at an accelerated pace. Now there are a lot of games left to be played, but an awkward atmosphere surrounding the program. The Tigers responded well under Melvin Watkins to beat Kansas State on Sunday, with four players reaching double figures and the best chemistry they have shown in weeks. But Watkins appears to be nothing more than a lame duck right now, and may not be considered as a candidate to take over the head coaching job.

The Tigers next take the court at Kansas on Saturday, in a game that they have little chance to win, even if they do play well. That creates an interesting case study – especially if we can project the answer to this issue up front. It is one thing to play well at home when having the lead, but it is another matter entirely when having to compete from behind on the road. Do Watkins and the Missouri players have the heart and determination to go hard for 40 minutes every time out, and might they indeed have a chip on their shoulder(s)? Or since the already have an open invitation to fold under adversity, will they accept it?


Bobby