And We're Back!!!

As a true fanatic of major league baseball, the energy that my St. Louis Cardinals gave me in the last month of the season, throughout the playoffs, capitalizing in a World Series Championship hasn't worn off yet.  It won't for quite some time.  From my perspective, one of the many beauties of college basketball is the perfection with which it inverses the baseball schedule.  Right as the World Series wraps up, it's time to start focusing towards college media days and looking forward to position battles and early opponents.  Undoubtedly, it would be asinine to expect the Bulldogs to put together they type of year that the Cardinals had.  That said, despite our early struggles against Quincy I'm still excited for the start of another basketball season.  I've been traveling the past few weekends and can't wait to get into the Knapp for the first time this season.

Blogger has moved into the 21st century and has provided BulldogsRoundball with the functionality to reformat some things which I've happily taken advantage of.  I've tried to clean the site up a bit and simplify things.  Hopefully, I'll add some other interesting tidbits here soon (I'm throwing around Poll ideas, picking against the spread, and most importantly a glossary of some of the terms I typically throw around).  I'd encourage anyone, even the anonymous reader to post comments with items you'd like to see.

It's hard to believe it's here but Tuesday brings Iowa State.  From my point of view, it's a match up of two teams that bring plenty of questions into this season.  From the Drake perspective:

• Who will win the point guard positional battle?  Karl Madison, David Smith, or Kurt Alexander?
• Will Rayvonte Rice take a step forward or be hampered by off-season idiocracy?
• Will Seth Van Deest play this year?  When will Reece Uhlenhopp rejoin the team?
• Will Jordan Clarke and Kraidon Woods be able to strengthen the rebounding issues that plagued the Bulldogs a season ago?
• Who will provide scoring support after Rice and Ben Simons?  Jeremy Jeffers, Aaron Hawley, Alexander, Judd Welfringer, someone else?
• How well will the Bulldogs be able to stretch opposing defenses with the graduation of sharpshooter Ryan Wedel?

These could go on and on.  We've got several injuries early on, but it's time to really put this team to the test.  Unfortunately we lost a complete stinker to Quincy, but those box scores show a team that we shouldn't see for the rest of the season.  While a loss to a non D-1 opponent is inexcusable in any capacity, I don't think it is quite indicative of how well this team will play in the future.  Likewise, I don't know how much the blowout win over Upper Iowa tells us other than the Quincy game was more of a hiccup and less of a reason to jump.

That said, we're going to face a stiff test on Tuesday.  It's going to be an Iowa State team quite different than what we've seen in the past.  They have questions of their own:

• Is this really going to be a NCAA Tournament team, or just an overhyped squad that can't come together?  We've heard plenty so far about Royce White, but will he be the real deal?  What is going to be this teams identity?
• Is the 18 turnovers at Lehigh a blip on the radar, or some ballhandling issues to be exploited?
• Is there enough depth in that interior?
• Is Anthony Booker going to make another three pointer in the remainder of his career after draining one against Lehigh?

Tuesday will be a stiff test.  I'm hoping the following will occur:

• Drake doesn't have too big of cohesion problems after not truly playing a game yet together this season.
• Rice presents an offensive game that Iowa State isn't ready and capable to handle.
• Jordan Clarke and Kraidon Woods play enough interior defense on White and more importantly, beat him on the boards.
• Drake wins the shooting percentage substantially (we'll need lady luck on our side for this one).
• Foul trouble does not plague our bigs.

If some of the above can occur, could definitely see the scales tipping our way.  Either way, it will be good to see a big time matchup again in the Knapp.