Hoops On The Horizon

Roundball fans need to get set for another exciting season to begin soon, and there is plenty of basketball action scheduled for the Hump.

Clemson, Miami and Missouri are some rare, if ever, visitors to the Dawg House along with Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee from the SEC East Division. The usual round robin of home and away with the SEC West rounds out the 2008 campaign.

It all starts with tipoff on Saturday, November 3rd, against the Patriots from the University of the Cumberlands from Williamsburg, KY (the basketball equivalent of Gardner-Webb). But let us not get cocky and overlook any team this year. The old cliche of playing them one at a time should be drilled into this squad from the get go. As an aside, the Patriots' colors are also maroon and white.

Basketball media days begin today (Wednesday) in Birmingham with the Dawg's time before the writers from 9 to 11 tomorrow. In attendance for the Bulldogs will be coaches Rick Stansbury and Sharon Fanning. They will bring with them Jamont Gordon, Charles Rhodes, Marneshia Richard and Imesia Jackson.

A tacky aside -- if some of you ladies are expecting twins, you might want to consider Marneshia and Imesia as possible names to honor the Lady Dawg players -- or maybe not.

The Boy Dawgs are coming off a season as SEC West Division Champions and a run to the NIT semifinals. Actually only Arkansas should stand in the way of an SEC West repeat in 2008.

Returning from the 2007 campaign are Charles Rhodes, Jamont Gordon, Jarvis Varnado, Ben Hansbrough and Barry Stewart. Redshirt Phil Turner and transfer Brian Johnson have been through one year of practice with the Bulldogs and should contribute off the bench.

Freshmen Kodi Augustus, Ravern Johnson and Riley Benock can all shoot from downtown Starkville. Elgin Bailey (name remind you of a great BB player?) is big and impressive.

SportProjections.com preseason ranking picks the Dawgs at #20 and says, "This is a strong team that should return everybody. They look to be the best of the SEC West." Don't know when this was written, but we know that everybody didn't return -- some opted to leave and some were opted to leave.

Rivals.com named Jamont Gordon as the top point guard in the country and lists Charles Rhodes as the 13th best power foward. Good kudos guys but don't read your press clippings.

Joel Welser of collegehoops.net calls Stansbury's squad, "A deep and very talented team." He goes on to say "anything but another trip (to NCAA Tourney) in 2008 will be disappointing." You got that right. Welser adds that Gordon, Steward and Hansbrough are the "who to watch" guys.

But we all know that all of this stuff in print is not worth a tinker's dam -- performance is what counts -- you got to have a heap more W's than L's.

Continuing on with the cliches, the Dawgs have a long road to hoe, but barring any kind of misfortune, they should make all of us Dawg fans proud and make the ole Hump rock.

Go Dawgs!!!!!!!!!!