The Week In Tv Sports

Highlights

SATURDAY 1/6
? Wake Forest at North Carolina
ESPN 9 PM
Answers to life's most perplexing questions, such as Who Moved My Cheese? or Dude, Where's My Car?, we can't provide. But if you ask, "Are the Number 4 Demon Deacons for real?" we say, "Yes." Led in scoring by sixth man Craig Dawson (15.3-point average), Wake Forest (12-0 through Tuesday) visits Chapel Hill having won 17 straight games and held all but one opponent to less than 40% shooting from the field. The No. 13 Tar Heels were 9-2 under first-year alum-coach Matt Doherty but lost to their only ranked rival, No. 1 Michigan State.

WEDNESDAY 1/10

?Trail Blazers at Sixers
TNT 8 PM
How long until Philly coach Larry Brown pulls a Cast Away and speaks only to a basketball that he addresses as "Spalding"? Through Tuesday the Sixers, after a 10-0 start, had gone an erratic 11-8, lost floor leader Eric Snow to a broken right ankle and weathered the 48-hour absence of Brown, who called a personal timeout to calm his nerves. The upside: The rapping of leading scorer Allen Iverson (26.2 points per game) will allow VH-1 someday to do a Behind the Music on the Sixers' season.

?Blues at Mighty Ducks
ESPN2 10:30 PM
If you're playing the Blues, you're singing the blues. Through Tuesday, thanks to the NHL's stingiest defense (2.0 goals allowed per game), St. Louis had suffered a mere six losses in 36 games. Moreover, defensemen Chris Pronger and Al MacInnis, and left wing Pavol Demitra were the league's top three players in the plus-minus category. Anaheim, in last place in the Pacific Division, needs right wing Teemu Selanne, who was suffering through a 14-game scoring drought, to return to form.

Don't Miss

SATURDAY 1/6 AND SUNDAY 1/7
? NFL Divisional Playoffs
SATURDAY FOX 12:30 PM, CBS 4 PM; SUNDAY CBS 12:30 PM, FOX 4 PM
Cinematically speaking, history's first forward pass occurred during the "dawn of man" scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, when an ape-man hurled a bone. In a scene cut from the film, referee Phil Luckett called roughing the passer against the monolith, but that's another tale for another day. In the weekend's best matchup, Sunday's early game between the Ravens and the Titans, passing won't be the story as linebacker Ray Lewis (page 60) leads Baltimore and its record-setting defense against Tennessee and formidable running back Eddie George (above). The Ravens are the only team to have beaten the Titans at Adelphia Coliseum (a 24-23 defeat on Nov. 12), the site of today's game.

ALL TIMES EASTERN. SCHEDULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.