Happy 1st practice day!

[Retire33]

True depth, Big East, great signing day upcoming, NBA potential 1st rounder in backcourt.

Lots to be excited about and it all begins today. Coach 'em up Coach Mack!

[blueblob06]

Love it.

Reds? Bengals? Forget 'em! Musketeer Madness is less than a month away! GO MUSKIES!!!

[toledodan]

Love it.

Reds? Bengals? Forget 'em! Musketeer Madness is less than a month away! GO MUSKIES!!!

after this past weekend it can't get here fast enough.

[GoMuskies]

I wonder if there will be a noticeable improvement in quality of play early in the season with the extra weeks of practice.

[Milhouse]

I wonder if there will be a noticeable improvement in quality of play early in the season with the extra weeks of practice.

Will be hard to say especially since theres only a handful of road games as well.

[Cheesehead]

having some withdrawl. Bring on the season!

[xubrew]

I wonder if there will be a noticeable improvement in quality of play early in the season with the extra weeks of practice.

I'm wondering the same thing myself, but I'm thinking it won't be all that noticeable. You're still only allowed to practice 30 days. It's just that there are now 12 off days instead of three (or whatever it was before). Some teams aren't even starting until the old start time, and are in a sense taking their off days at the start of practice.

Having said that, I do think we've seen improvement the last two years with the eight hours of "individual instruction" (or whatever the hell they're calling it) that are now allowed each week prior to the official start of practice.

[XUFan09]

I think a longer period of time over which to run those 30 practices benefits Xavier a decent bit, when you consider how many new faces there are that need to mesh together. If there weren't so many new guys, it probably wouldn't be a big deal.