Sports Editor

There’s no excuse for anything but a packed house at Trojan Arena tonight.

This is a chance for the city of Troy, each and every one of the Troy State Students and any fans within driving distance to show their support and in return see some very entertaining basketball.

Samford, is without a doubt, the most talented team to visit Troy this season and if you are any kind of basketball fan your fanny needs to be in a seat at Trojan Arena. In the seat until the game starts that is. That’s when we need to hear how loud a crowd or 4,000-plus can get.

The Bulldogs are going to come into the game looking to dominate with a highly complicated style of offense that features four players scoring in double figures on average. They would have five, but their point guard is so unselfish and good at dishing out assists he’s only hitting for 9.2 a game.

Can you name the only other team in the Trans America Athletic Conference that has four players averaging in double figures? Yep, you guessed it, it’s the Trojans.

Both teams can score in bunches, both teams can shoot the three and both teams are looking for a win to propel them to the top of the heap in the TAAC.

Go over to the TSU men’s basketball office and about the only way you can describe the people you meet there is giddy. Head coach Don Maestri and his staff and even his players probably didn’t get much sleep last night anticipating this game and how could they? This contest has a special feel to it.

Maestri said it best when he stated there’s just an atmosphere around this game.

"To me, atmosphere is one of the great things about college basketball," Maestri said. "We saw a lot of people experience that at the Jacksonville game earlier this year. That was fun, but going into this game I think it will be bigger. This one you look forward to because everyone is going to walk into an atmosphere that is college basketball. That’s what I like about it. Thursday night’s atmosphere is what college basketball is all about."

Of course we could all be wrong and it might be a blowout one way or another. Then of course we always have the Jacksonville State matchup on Saturday. As usual, you can expect anytime that TSU and the Gamecocks square off it will be a fight.

Does it get any better than this?

"To me the next three days are a beautiful thing," Maestri said. "Thursday and Saturday, basketball is going to hit Troy Alabama. Everybody has the high rankings. Samford we know is a great team and Jacksonville State is always a bitter rivalry any way you look at it. That’s three teams, all from Alabama, coming to town and for them to be playing each other while we’re in this position, I just think it’s great for basketball in Troy."