The men's gymnastics team is in limbo.

After a disappointing 278.80-272.10 loss to Iowa last weekend, the Lions (3-1) are waiting to face talented Ohio State next week.

But in between is a meet with Northern Illinois at 8 tomorrow night in Rec Hall. This is the first of two double-dual meets of the season. The Lady Lions will take on IUP.

While the Lions were fully aware of Iowa's potential last week, they remain a bit in the dark about Northern Illinois (2-2).

"From the past, they've had some excellent performers," assistant coach Randy Jepson said. "This year, they're kind of a mystery. They've had lineups where they've been depleted down to where they've counted a few zeros."

In their last performance, the Huskies tallied a 270.4 to win a tri-meet over Western Michigan and Iowa State.

With that meet, part of the mystery was solved. Waldemar Kolassa, in his first year at Northern Illinois, has had problems with eligibility. Although he is a junior, Kolassa is a native of Poland and had to wait to be cleared for participation by the NCAA. Last week was his first appearance for the Huskies. He took first place honors on vault (9.4) and high bar (9.3) and finished second in the all-around (54.40).

While Kolassa's return will surely help the Huskies, the Lions still think they can handle the competition. To date, the Lions' highest score is a 276.42 and their lowest, from the first meet of the season, a 270.55.

Sophomore Wayne Cowden, the top all-arounder for the Lions, has scored as high as a 56.60 this season while freshman Mike Masucci has tallied a 55.35.

"This meet is perfect for us now," Jamie Downer said. "We had two really intense practice weeks before Iowa, and then going away for four days was tiring. This meet isn't going to be one our toughest. I think it's perfectly timed in our schedule."

In Iowa, the Lions competed without senior Karl Abraham who remained in State College after oral surgery. The loss of the senior took its toll on the team both in terms of attitude and score, but this week Abraham is ready to go.

"My tooth is gone, but the gap has been bothering me a little bit," he said. "I thought it was a problem because I was a bit shaky. I tried a handstand on Saturday and it wasn't too good.

"I was a bit worried because I wasn't able to work out since Tuesday of last week. That's almost a week taken off, but I feel pretty good. I'm feeling a lot stronger anyway."

This season, the Lions have been plagued by a lackluckster performance in the last two events of the meet -- parallel bars and high bar. To date, the highest score the team has mustered on high bar was last week's 46.

"We are certainly due for a good, solid hit on the last half of the meet," Jepson said. "They know that they're solid on horse and rings, probably as solid as any team in the country on those two events. But we need to pick up the last three events and be just as intense and competitive on those."

Yet the Lions are convinced that they are comparable to, if not better than, Iowa. In that meet, the Hawkeyes had just one broken routine while the Lions suffered 12 breaks -- as well as competed without Abraham.

Because this will be a double dual-meet, the team will be forced to think about the task at hand. While this may be confusing, it can also be beneficial.

"I think the main problem will be sustaining our concentration 'til the end of the meet," Abraham said. "Plus with a meet such as this, there's going to be some time at the end while we're just hangin' around waiting for the girls to catch up. It'll be good for us. We need that kind of pressure now."

Because of last week's loss, Northern Illinois may feel the brunt of the Lions' anger. Last season when the two teams met, Penn State downed the Huskies, 272.20-267.25. This year, their goal is much higher -- a 276 or 278, Mike Reichenbach predicted.

"We're coming off a loss and we need to regroup," captain Mark Sohn said. "We need to have a team hit before Ohio State. We really haven't had a team hit where we've gone solid on all six events. I think this meet will be a good time to do that so we don't surprise ourselveswith Ohio State, we just do it."