One of my roommates at Fairfield, who will remain anonymous to protect his reputation, used to go on 20-minute long rants about the wonder of conference play. He'd use it as a metaphor for all sorts of things in life. His point was, if it's conference play, it's time to tighten your shoe laces, drink an extra red bull, and go full throttle at the task at hand.

The best -- and weirdest -- part was that he'd do it in a Dick Vitale voice, then go on and on and on and on and and and on (OK, I know, you get it), his words coming quicker and quicker, louder and louder, exclaiming things like "we're talking about the Tar Heels and the Dukies! We're talking about the Terapins and the Deacons baby!" He, like Dickey V himself, is a bit of an ACC nut.

One time, in January of 2007, a friend of mine was leaving for a semester abroad in India. My friend was in a bittersweet mood about leaving, and wanted to live life to the fullest the day before he left. After a night at the Grape, my friend stumbled into my apartment, got down on TWO knees, and begged my Dickey-V-impersonating roomate to do the "conference play" rant.

And were my roommate waxing poetic about conference play right now, he'd have plenty to talk about regarding the MAAC -- which gets full throttle into conference play as quick as any conference in the country.

Last night, when most of college basketball was asleep, DeJuan Goodwin lifted Marist to a thrilling win -- awesome baby! -- over Iona in Chuck Martin's first conference game; Manhattan bounced back with an easy win over Canisius heading into its Sunday game at Rider, and Fairfield won its fourth straight by crushing Saint Peter's. The Stags are off to their best start since I was a freshman at FU way back in 2003-04, the season for which Tim O'Toole was named MAAC coach of the year.