Issue date: 11/5/09 Section: Sports

Allan Lewis [Click to enlarge]

The floor in the Vadalabene Center is back to normal, "beat ISU" shirts are on sale and Cory the Cougar is combing his fur.

With no NCAA football team to cheer for during the first few months of the semester, this is it for Cougar fans. The wait for college basketball is over.

SIUE began its second season transitioning to Division I Wednesday, hosting Division III MacMurray College. If you were there, great. If you stayed in your dorm or in the library ignoring the red lights, shame on you. This is not another fan support column because it should be obvious by now the Cougars are hitting the big time and the students need to be behind them in any way possible. If you don't care by now, you probably won't care at all.

There are reasons to be excited and optimistic.

SIUE is going to have a good team. Maybe not an NIT team, and NCAA guidelines prohibit them from being an NCAA tournament team, but they are poised to impress under third year Head Coach Lennox Forrester.

In USA Today's college basketball preview, the Cougars were regarded as one of the top independent teams in the country, and sophomore forward Mark Yelovich was named to their All-Independent team, along with Dana Smith (Longwood University), Jamar Briscoe (North Carolina Central University), Chris Gweth (Seattle University), and Trent Blakley (Cal State-Bakersfield). The publication also billed next Friday's regular season opener at the University of Illinois as a "great local matchup between two competitive teams."

Reading this had me fired up immediately.

The Cougars retained most of their young talent from last season. Brandon Dunson and Barry Wellington packed their bags and transferred to schools I have never heard of, but Yelovich averaged more than 13 points a game and led SIUE as a freshman, Aamir McCleary is a bona fide senior leader, and the Cougars sport a strong recruiting class ready to make an immediate impact. Not to mention the big Serbian center, Nikolo Bundalo will be a force in the paint.

The Cougars will be dangerous. They will not win 20 games, but with Forrester's focus on toughness and competing, expect a more mature team and do not think they will go away or be an easy target.

Most games on the schedule are winnable, with the exception of a few. The University of Evansville is going to be down after losing four starters. Illinois State University is going to be vulnerable on the road and after losing some key parts of their team. The Cougars hold an 8-5 all-time series lead against Indiana University-Purdue University-Fort-Wayne, a team SIUE knows well from their days in D-II.

The Big Ten schools on the schedule will be a challenge, but don't count against SIUE, as they look to turn heads this season.

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