Did the men’s basketball team get abducted by aliens on the road to Tennessee this weekend?

Or perhaps the Panthers were drugged with sleeping pills on the bus ride and only few players were able to recover enough strength. Did the Panthers go into hibernation with the cold weather that came through the Midwest?

Maybe Tennessee State suddenly found superhuman strength to defend Henry Domercant.

Whatever the reason, the men’s basketball team is now on a two-game skid thanks to the 97-92 loss at Tennessee Tech Thursday and another 94-76 loss to Tennessee State Saturday.

Tech is now on the third-longest NCAA winning streak, taking their 11th-straight win Saturday against Southeast Missouri. The Golden Eagles are a perfect 9-0 in the league, quickly diminishing any other team’s chances at taking the regular season title.

Tennessee State went 3-0 last week with additional wins against Morehead State and Southeast Missouri while sophomore Garrett Richardson took this week’s honors as the OVC Player of the Week.

But what happened to the Panthers?

Domercant was defended. The nation’s No. 2 scorer was not averaging 26.8 points per game. And for the first time in 54 consecutive games, the junior forward didn’t hit double figures. Instead he scored just nine points.

Domercant obviously wasn’t in a position to score thanks to Tiger defense, but who was there to step up?

J.R. Reynolds had 20 points, while Craig Lewis and Jesse Mackinson each added 11 and 10 points respectively. But three Panthers above 10 points was no where comparable to five Tigers over 12 points.

Turnovers didn’t help Eastern’s offensive drive either. Four Eastern players each committed four, and two others added three more miscues – eventually giving Eastern a grand total of 26.

Is this the new face of Eastern basketball, or just a large bump in the road? After all, the Panthers are now 3-8 on the road and have two more long bus rides ahead of them.

Eastern travels to Eastern Kentucky and Morehead this weekend. Eastern Kentucky is 2-7 in the OVC and has three games between Monday and Saturday. But Morehead, on the other hand, is standing strong in the league at 5-3 with the No. 8 scorer in the nation, Ricky Minard.

There are just seven games left on the schedule, and February is looking dim already. But there’s hope for fewer bumps in the road this week.

Maybe Kentucky roads are a little smoother than they are in Tennessee – and the unidentified flying objects are just a figment of their imagination from too many hours on the bus.