We’re less than 24 hours from the tip-off of the 2006-07 season, and I’m feeling like absolute shit. Nothing like a well-timed illness to take some of the luster out of the new basketball year.

Tonight we get our first look at the seven newest faces on the Longhorn roster. Or eight, if you feel like counting Ian Mooney as “new.” We have so much talent coming in that it’s hard not to have pie-in-the-sky dreams. But a quick reminder of how young our team is should temper any of those feelings.

Fans won’t really learn a whole lot from tonight’s exhibition against Lenoir-Rhyne, the alma mater of coach Rick Barnes. But it ought to be fun to see our highly-touted recruits beating up on incredibly overmatched competition. In particular, the play of Kevin “K-Smoove” Durant should blow away the crowd. Our other most exciting recruit is Damion James, a late signee after OU coach Kelvin Sampson made more (illegal) phone calls than a 15-year-old girl. James should also put up solid numbers, although he will not look at good as Durant. But in all honestly, who will?

For those thinking of attending the game, it’s free admission to all with general admission seating throughout the arena. If you’ve got little ones, arrive at 5:30 and race down to the front rows, courtside. It’ll be something they remember forever.

And of course, don’t forget your costumes. It’s Halloween, after all.

The ESPN/USA Today Coaches Top 25 Poll came out for the first time today and, as always, gives us a lot to argue over and bitch about for the last few weeks leading up to the season.

Texas debuts at #19, which sits well with me. Our team is a young, unproven commodity and we honestly won’t know our club very well until mid-December. The Coaches vs. Cancer tournament offers a chance to play some solid talent early at a neutral site, which will test our kids and give them experience with the format of the NCAAs. Games in December against Gonzaga and LSU will acclimate the players to the college game and hopefully show us what we’re dealing with.

Elsewhere in the Big 12, Kansas checks in at #3 and Texas A&M is #13 to start the year. Billy Gillispie’s team played well last season by deflating the ball and playing some rough, low-scoring ballgames. It reminded me a lot of certain Big East teams, and it proved effective. Time will tell if they deserve to be ranked this high, as they play both LSU and UCLA in a one-week span, away from the rowdy home crowds of Reed Arena.

According to the early poll, Coach Barnes has done a solid job of scheduling quality talent to season our club. Outside of conference play, we have the aforementioned game with #7 LSU, and a game in Knoxville over the holidays against #24 Tennessee. Other opponents on the schedule who received votes are Gonzaga, Villanova, Oklahoma State, and — depending on how the Horns play in the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament — Michigan State and Maryland.

Hey there. You’re reading my site, which means that your favorite porn site is having server issues, or you’re too bored for even another episode of Judge Joe Brown Judy’s Divorce Court. Hopefully I’ll keep you a little more entertained than the latest white trash couple fighting over the gun rack and custody of their inbred child.

I started this blog to document my attempt to attend every single University of Texas men’s basketball game in the 2006-07 season. I’ve traveled often in the past to watch the basketball team, but this season I’m taking it to another level.

Feel free to follow along with me as I relate the ups and downs of the long NCAA season from a fan’s point of view — on row one in the Frank Erwin Center and in arenas throughout the country.