I remember it like it was yesterday.

Coming into UMass as a freshman, I had little knowledge of college athletics in the Pioneer Valley aside from the Massachusetts men’s basketball team. When the paperwork was sent in and I was ready to head north from Florida to Amherst, friends told me, “Hey man, you’re going to have a great basketball team up there.”

So there I was, excited for the 2001-02 season, sitting in the then-crowded student section of the Mullins Center, with players like Shannon Crooks and Kitwana Rhymer headlining the squad. Steve Lappas was new to UMass and at first glance, everything appeared perfect.

They went 4-0 to start off the season, dropping national powerhouses Oregon 62-58 and North Carolina State 69-62 and were cruising towards a home match-up against University Connecticut, with only Holy Cross standing in the way.

That’s when everything went terribly wrong.

In front of nearly 7,000 screaming fans, the Crusaders downed the Minutemen and from then on the program wasn’t the same. Michael Smiley, a sharpshooter from Holy Cross, shot the lights out that night and a team that looked totally overmatched on paper and on the court went to bed that night victors.

But I kept coming.

My friends and I would sit in our seats, roughly 10 rows back and watch game after disappointing game. The crowds started to diminish over the past three years, hockey took over, and what was once a thriving basketball school became a campus of frustration.

Talk of the season ahead became the same old song. “They should be good, they have potential, this year will be better,” were comments you could almost set your watch to as fall slowly faded into the doldrums of another New England winter.

This year, however, things are starting to look different for the Minutemen. Things look like they are finally turning around.

For the first time since Lappas has arrived, the lineup isn’t chock full of Bruiser Flint’s (Lappas’s predecessor) recruits. It is a team that has depth beyond the sixth man and there is actually more than one viable scoring option.

Instead of sharp-shooting point guard Anthony Anderson carrying the load and surrounded by question marks, there are a few other players, including last year’s leading-scorer and Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year Rashaun Freeman.

However, as any knowledgeable UMass fan will attest to, they’ve been in this situation before. Reminiscent of the Crooks-Rhymer tandem of old, many Minutemen supporters may be wary to put all of their faith in another point guard/big man offensive scheme, but if you look at the lineup on paper the talent on this team goes a bit deeper.

For the first time in awhile there will be a fight for starting positions.

Jeff Viggiano, who last year was a shoe-in to start at small forward, now has to compete with defensive-minded Maurice Maxwell. Although there may be some discrepancy to who starts from week to week, this competition will be beneficial for both players.

Aside from the swing-man rotation, UMass has one of the most intimidating front courts in recent memory. Freeman, who is a lock at power forward, and Stephame Lasme, who may be the best defensive center in the A-10 this year, will guard the paint for the Minutemen. However, Lasme has this problem where he gets himself into foul trouble … fast.

For any other UMass team of the past four years, foul trouble down low would decipher into problems, but not this year. Freshmen Jeff “Big Deli” Salovski, who stands at 6 foot 11 and an imposing 325 pounds, and Lawrence Carrier, who was once a top 10 recruit in the nation are both ready and able to not only defend, but also dominate the paint.

As any sports fan knows, it’s hard to get excited after three mediocre seasons in a row. Fans of the Minutemen will be skeptical, as they should, until the product they root for finally delivers. But maybe this year is different; perhaps the right pieces are actually in place and a positive chapter will be written in the ongoing saga of UMass basketball. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens this year.

And it all starts tonight

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-Bob McGovern is a Collegian Columnist he can be contacted at [email protected]