Are you ready to rock?

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends ... except for a few months over the summer, when nothing's going on in Bearcat Country.

Well actually, a lot of stuff is going on, of course. Players are working hard in the gyms and on the practice courts, getting prepared for the fall season. And coaching staffs are spanning the globe, looking for the next great prospect to bring their team to the promised land.

Some America East blogs, namely America Least -- perhaps my favorite basketball blog, if not my favorite overall blog -- keep churning out posts all summer long, attempting to keep up with recruiting efforts around the conference.

To be frank, I don't have the patience to keep up with recruiting efforts. I'll take a look at the official Bearcats Web site once in a while to see how the roster is shaping up, but I don't have the time to browse hundreds of recruiting Web sites through the spring and summer. Some fans are fascinated by this stuff -- honestly, I just don't have the patience or the resources to keep up with it.

Obviously, recruiting is an incredibly important part of college basketball. I'm by no means trying to play down the need to recruit talented, well-rounded individuals. And if I were a pro basketball writer, with the time and resources needed to look into it, I'd love to become a high school basketball junkie.

Unfortunately, in reality, I'm holding down a full-time job, albeit at a newspaper. And it has just about nothing to do with basketball.

The cool part, though, is that my full-time job is right in the heart of Vestal, New York -- a frisbee's throw from the Events Center. So when the season starts again shortly, I'll be able to once again keep track of the Bearcats, from the opening tip to the, well ... probably, the first round of the America East conference tournament.

I won't claim to know everything about the Bearcats, especially at this point in the preseason. And I certainly can't claim to know everything about all the new blood around the conference at the moment.

But what I can deliver on this blog is a unique game-by-game perspective of the team that I have come to love over the past six years. I attended my first Bearcats game back when the team played in the West Gym in the fall of 2003 -- and here I am, five seasons later, still wearing the same green BU ZOO t-shirt to each and every home game.

The '08-'09 festivities kick off Friday night with Late Nite Madness, which, if history repeats itself, promises to be an underwhelmingly disappointing train wreck. I've always thought the athletics department could put a little more pizazz into the annual event, and I don't think this year will be any different.

The season opener is still about a month off, when the Bearcats will kick off against powerhouse Buffalo State. (Full schedule) As that epic showdown approaches, I'll try and piece together a more poignant season preview, and give my thoughts on how I think the season will shake out. (Hint: Not great.)

I know I've said this a few times now, but ... stay tuned.