7:00 p.m. Tip-off for AK & Co.

Now wait a minute, Beck...

Lest we forget, tonight is also opening night for AK and the hardcourt Rebs. Arkansas State visits us and tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m. From everything I gather the Rebs will be short on experience but long on talent/potential this year. We lost Parnell, Curtis and the Beard from last year's squad, who collectively played 99.99999% of our frontcourt minutes last year. That's the bad news. The good news is that from everything I gather, our new bigs are much more compatable with AK's system.

Seriously I don't know much about this year's squad, other than Kennedy is telling people that they'll be surprised by how much Chris Warren is improved - which is comforting considering the guy was one of our best players last year and was a first team Freshman All-SEC guy.

When I was covering the Rebs two years ago Kennedy told people to watch out for Bam Doyne - who until that point had been an utterly un-noteworthy player. Then he exploded and led the SEC in scoring for half the season. Kennedy said the same thing about Polyniece last year, who blossomed into our best defender and transition scorer. So if AK wants to sing Warren's praises, I'll take his word for it.

I'll make no predictions about his squad's end of the year record, as we are VERY young and will likely stumble early and often in the first half of this season. Don't bet on us doing our typical burst out of the gate with a 13-0 record - though I'd love nothing more than to be surprised. Do look for the Rebs to be vastly improved at the end of the season. For us to have any type of success, we'll be leaning heavily on Polyniece and ET/David Huertas. Malcolm White's our only big with any type of experience, and the few times I saw him last year he looked like Shaq at the beginning of Blue Chips. Just raw, nasty skills, but in need of fine tuning. If that happens, look out. I see him turning into a player with Jermey Parnell's nasty streak - only with the ability to put up consistently decent offensive numbers.

Finally, a plea to anyone reading this in Oxford or near there: Please go watch AK and the Rebels. Its a home football weekend, so there's no excuse for us not to have at least 5,000 people there, even if it is Ark. State. Kennedy is too good of a coach for us to ignore, and you're fooling yourself if you don't think his name comes up every time a traditional big-time basketball school has an opening. Give the man the support he deserves. If you don't, he's likely to give you a melvin or a swirlie or something. Fer realz.

Again, for much better Rebel basketball coverage, do yourself a favor a go hyah: http://crepepaper.blogspot.com/