At Manhattan, it will start at midnight with energizing music, rambunctious students and a slam dunk contest.
At Columbia, it will start eight hours later with perspiration trumping pomp during a three-hour workout before a handful of alumni.
As soon as tonight turns to tomorrow, the country’s college basketball teams can begin full-squad practices. Of the City’s seven Division I programs, only the Jaspers will turn the occasion into a party, with Manhattan Madness bringing much of the school’s student body to Draddy Gym tonight.
With four starters returning and highly-touted transfer Peter Mulligan joining last year’s MAAC title team, Bobby Gonzalez’s club seems the most stable of the locals. Three teams boast new coaches, including Fordham, which won just four times last season and tapped Dereck Whittenburg to reconstruct what morphed into an Atlantic-10 embarrassment.
“Collectively, there’s a sense of excitement here that maybe hasn’t been here for a while,” Whittenburg said in August. “Once the team gets together, we want to keep that going.”
Whittenburg left a Wagner team that won the Northeast Conference last year, and Mike Deane will lead the Seahawks quest for the school’s second-ever NCAA tournament trip.
Former Villanova assistant Joe Jones takes over a Columbia team that went winless in the Ivy League last season.
Then there’s St. John’s, still the Apple kingpin, but seemingly stuck for scoring this season with Marcus Hatten’s eligibility expired.
The preseason roster features seven seniors, including potential leaders Willie Shaw, Grady Reynolds, Elijah Ingram, and Rice-graduate Kyle Cuffe. The Red Storm, like most of their City brethren, will start quietly tomorrow morning. In Brooklyn, Long Island and St. Francis will follow suit and begin their chase to dethrone Wagner at the top of the NEC.
“You can work all summer and do a lot,” Wagner’s Deane said after his hiring in May. “But when you start working with the players and get your team together, that’s when it’s really fun.”