It’s my belief that we’ve entered the Twilight Zone.

Nearly 365 days ago, Eastern traveled to Murray State and was embarrassed with a 103-56 loss in what looked like the Ohio Valley Conference’s version of a slam dunk contest. To quote Yogi Berra, 2003 is, “deja vu all over again.”

So, Panther head coach Rick Samuels has decided to put all of his chips in the middle of the poker table going into a do-or-die game at Eastern’s own personal purgatory.

Samuels is challenging all of the five seniors who will be competing in their final OVC Tournament.

“It comes down to the seniors throughout the entire rest of the way,” Samuels said.

Guards Henry Domercant, Craig Lewis, J.R. Reynolds, Ramon Taylor and center Jan Thompson will lead the Panthers into arguably the most frenzied arena in the OVC at the 8,600 seat Regional Special Events in Murray, Ky. To make matters worse, Eastern is 1-9 at Murray State since joining the OVC in 1996 and has had its season end by the Racers twice.

“Going to Murray isn’t a lot of fun,” Samuels said.

Truer words have never been spoken. Let’s just throw out the nine year stretch between 1990-1999 when Murray State penciled themselves into the NCAA Tournament in November (for all you keeping score, that’s Murray with 19 all-time post-season appearances and Eastern with two).

The one benefit three of these seniors (Henry Domercant, Jan Thompson and Crag Lewis) have is the 2001 OVC Tournament because if they’ve done it before, they can do it again.

In fact, this tournament may be setting up perfectly for a repeat run in 2003 because of fate. Two years ago, the Panthers beat Morehead State, Murray State and Austin Peay to win. If the seeds work out, Eastern will be forced to defeat those three schools once again, but not in the same order.

Samuels has been very clear that he is counting on all five of the seniors and not just NCAA second-leading scorer Henry Domercant. Domercant has been forced to carry his teammates in many games this season, and if he’s forced to do it Tuesday night, the Panthers can expect to be blown out of the building once again.

To break the OVC career scoring mark, Domercant needs 15 points and that would be a perfect total for the OVC preseason Player of the Year because that could mean the other starters contributed more offense.

Lewis, Reynolds, junior

Jesse Mackinson and freshman Josh Gomes will have to provide double-digits scoring efforts. Mackinson and Thompson will be forced to keep Murray’s athletes off the boards.

Finally, Taylor will have to bring his one-man energy machine on the road to counter the hostile Racer environment.

In layman’s terms, Eastern will be forced to play a perfect game in Murray to leave with a victory.

No matter what happens Tuesday night, it will either be a repeat performance of last season’s gruesome game or a repeat run to greatness.

Either way, these seniors have done it before and they will decide the Panthers 2003 destiny.