I'm in a good mood today.

My Turnpike commute is far more enjoyable on sunny days than cloudy ones, and there's plenty of college football on the airwaves to hold me over until 4 p.m.

Best of all, though, is basketball is finally here. Sure, preseason polls and practices are fun, but they're nothing compared to games. And even though today's Rider-West Chester tilt doesn't count for anything, it'll still be the first college basketball game I've covered since the Trenton regional semifinals of the NCAA women's tournament in March.

In case anyone missed them, a couple links: A story from two days ago on Justin Robinson's quest for a spot on the British national team, and a story in today's paper advancing the exhibition game.

I met with Tommy Dempsey yesterday, and from a motivational standpoint, he was happy a few Division I teams had lost to DII teams. He and Ed Cooley are good friends, so I'm sure he'd rather Fairfield not be one of the teams that went down, but the Stags -- undermanned as they were heading into their game against Bridgeport -- provide a good example to the Broncs of a pretty good team that ended up getting embarrassed by a lesser opponent.

The biggest question mark, as I wrote in today's story, is which groups will work best together for Rider.

The Broncs have four players who will definitely be in the starting lineup and play major minutes, no matter the opponent or the situation: Ryan Thompson, Justin Robinson, Novar Gadson and Mike Ringgold.

They have at least four other players who will be in the rotation, but have to earn playing time: Jhamar Youngblood, Jermaine Jackson, Brandon Penn and Jon Thompson.

Jackson will start today, in what Dempsey calls his "big group." That means a two-guard lineup with Gadson at small forward. But Dempsey also has the option of going with three guards and inserting Youngblood into the lineup in place of Jackson.

It's likely Rider will use some variation of each lineup in just about every game, but it's possible by early December one look will have proven to be more effective than the other.

Jon Thompson and Penn will both likely come off the bench no matter the matchups, but both will have to earn playing time as the season gets going.

Dempsey loves the fact that Thompson is versatile enough to fit in with either group. It'll be interesting to see how Penn develops after a freshmen year in which he provided an occasional spark off the bench but wasn't a major part of the gameplan.

As I type this in the Trentonian news room, we're about two hours from tip. I'm not sure what kind of wireless connection I'll be able to get in the Zoo, but if I have a good one I'll see if I can fire up the CoveritLive software or at least have an open thread on the blog like the one I put up for MAAC media day.

Internet or no Internet at the Zoo, I'll have a blog post later tonight breaking down the game and looking ahead to Mississippi State.