There's a buzz surrounding the Lincoln men's basketball team this year.
The Blue Tigers are coming off a 16-14 season and a quarterfinal appearance in the MIAA Tournament, their first postseason berth since 1987.
The excitement for the season was shown during Wednesday night's Blue Madness at Jason Gym.
The near-capacity crowd got the chance to see the high-flying Blue Tigers have a little fun as well as get on the court themselves for some friendly competition.
"Tonight's a night about having fun and celebrating the potential of this team," Blue Tigers head coach John Moseley said. "We have a great group of young men here who have come in here with a purpose of turning around the program."
With the passes off the glass for dunks and alley-oops out of the way, the Blue Tigers turn their attention to the start of exhibition play and the regular season.
The Blue Tigers will host their Blue-White Game at 12:30 p.m. Saturday and have an exhibition contest at 7 p.m. Thursday against Livin' The Dream.
"We have a team comprised of former collegiate players coming here to play us," Moseley said. "They are based out of Kansas City, but they have guys that have played in the MIAA. They have guys on the roster that have played at Illinois State, so it'll be a god challenge for us to kind of see the things we've been working on in practice."
The regular season begins Nov. 11 in the SBU Classic in Bolivar. The Blue Tigers will play Mary at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 11 and Minnesota-Crookston at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 12.
The first home game is set for 4 p.m. Nov. 26 against Truman State.
"Toward the end of the year you could barely get a seat in this place," Moseley said. "It makes for a really fun home-court environment. That's our challenge now is to keep that going."
The Blue Tigers were picked fourth in the MIAA preseason coaches poll.
"We're pleased with the respect that we've been given from our conference opponents to pick us fourth," Moseley said. "I dare say it's one of the few times, if not the first time, since we've rejoined the MIAA we haven't been picked last or next to last.
"Our guys also look at that and say we're picked fourth and last year we were picked 14th, it doesn't matter where you're picked in October it matters where you finish in March. I don't think these guys are satisfied with the expectation that they can be the fourth best team in the league. I think they are hungrier than that."
Lincoln had 10 returners from last year's team, including seven seniors.
Anthony Virdure and Jaylon Smith return after averaging 21.5 and 18.2 points per game, respectively.
"I think there's a lot of excitement here in Jefferson City and definitely here on campus about the season," Moseley said. "I think we're ready to get going."