We did, in fact, make it back safely from Kansas City on Wednesday afternoon. Since then, we’ve been a bit caught up in all the familial business and football overload, but will be back in the saddle later today.

Look for our Pitt wrap-up later tonight, a Rice preview early Sunday, and notes and photos from the KC trip sometime next week. In the meantime, enjoy the last round of holiday hoops tournaments and the last regular season Saturday for college football!

The Longhorns tip off against Western Carolina at 8 P.M. tonight, but unfortunately this morning there won’t be a game preview that you can read in lieu of doing actual work. Check back this afternoon for your early look at the high-flying, hard-hitting Catamount basketball team.

Just one game on the tube tonight, tipping in just about ten minutes…

James Madison at #17 Ohio State – 6 P.M. CST, Big Ten Network

Fans were treated to nearly as many minutes from the Buckeye bench as from the starters in Monday night’s 100-60 blowout victory over Alcorn State. Evan Turner‘s triple-double led the way, but Jon Diebler‘s long-range marksmanship provided a game-high 22 points. The big storyline for tonight’s game is the scheduled return of big man Dallas Lauderdale. With the high likelihood of another runaway win, there probably won’t be a lot of minutes for the junior forward. But Lauderdale’s season debut should give Ohio State fans their first look at the Coach Thad Matta’s preferred starting five.

Remember the catch-all disclaimer we ran just two days ago in the first scoreboard round-up? The one about sometimes sleeping instead of writing? Yeah…..we’re already playing that card this morning.

We’ll be back this afternoon with a late look at last night’s action, a run through the first 2009-10 edition of Fast Break, and a quick look at tonight’s lone televised contest. Auf wiedersehen for now, dear readers.

With the calendar turning to November in just 34 short hours, it’s time for our return to the keyboard, and a return to covering the sport and team we love so much.

It’s certainly been a busy off-season for both yours truly and Rick Barnes. But while I spent most of my summer months making money to pay for my travels and earning favor points with the girlfriend I practically abandon from November to March, the coach of the Longhorns had much more important tasks at hand. Most recently, Barnes added two walk-ons to his already robust roster, and has been working for the last two weeks with an incredibly stacked team that opens the season ranked third in the nation.

We’ve got quite a bit of work to do in the next two weeks to clean up around here, with the first priority being a massive uploading of photos. Unfortunately, a hard drive crash in April fried all of my pictures and videos from the last few weeks of the 2008-09 season, but with the help of folks that joined me on those trips, I’m hoping to piece together something for those pages.

For now, enjoy the football team’s big game in Stillwater and swipe a few pieces of the Halloween loot your kids bring home. We’ll be back on Monday the 9th, when we hit the ground running for what promises to be an exciting 2009-10 season!