Decisive weekend in the AUS: Headlines Galore

HALIFAX, NS–There are three weekends left in the in the AUS and this weekend may be the most important of them all. The top four teams in the standings square off as St FX hosts Acadia and UPEI, while Cape Breton welcomes UPEI and Acadia with each game being worth 4 points in the standings.

Are the #1 UPEI Panthers going to hold on that spot or are the surging #2 Acadia Axemen going take control?

Are the #3 St FX X-Men going to snap out of its recent slump and return to pre Christmas form and get back to the top and AUS dominance?

Are the #4 Cape Breton Capers going to show that they are for real or are they pretenders?

Will the standings race going to get tightened or are they going to get blown up?

We cannot forget about the surging #6 UNB Varsity Reds who slipped into a playoff spot Friday night past now #7 Saint Marys Huskies with a 77-59 home win over The #5 Dalhousie Tigers who are two points up on UNB and 4 up on SMU. Dalhousie plays at UNB again tomorrow at 4:00pm. Saint Mary`s who is also slumping of late will be fighting for their playoff lives as they host the potential party spoiling Memorial Sea Hawks on Saturday at 4:00pm and Sunday at 4:00pm.

The Acadia Axemen play at St FX on Saturday at 8:00pm in their final matchup of the season and UPEI plays at Cape Breton at the same time with the two visiting teams flipping spots on Sunday at 4:00pm. With 8 points separating the first place Panthers and the 3rd place X-Men no matter what happens, there will be very serious movement in the AUS standings this weekend and someone is going to secure a strong hold on the first round AUS playoff byes.

Keep in mind St FX is undefeated at home and UPEI who is also unbeaten at home is only playing 500 basketball on the road. Oh so many story lines, something has to give.

As a coach with Acadia Women about five years ago I fully understand how brutal this road trip is and how taxing it is on a team physically and mentally. For both travelling teams they get off of 5 hour plus bus trip and play on Saturday. Then they hop on the bus after the game and travel to the next School and get into the hotel at 1 or 2 in the morning and then get up and prepare to play the next day. For the Axemen and the Panthers this is a true test of toughness and whether a team can show the true fight and survive against two very tough opponents.

They scenarios are endless but for basketball in the Atlantic University Sport Conference it doesn`t get any more exciting than this and fans of all team will be watching very closely to see where their teams are standing after the sneakers stop squeaking and the sweat dries this weekend. Some team is getting

lots of love for Valentines and some team is getting no love, get to a game or watch the streams online, it is going to be a great weekend.