Gentlemen, Start Your Engines: The Dawn of Conference Play, 2012 Edition

This is what we've been waiting for. The real season begins today: America East conference play. Only one team does not play tonight, and they are America's annual pick to win the conference, Boston University.

But the rest of the conference does battle, and four teams will start off league play 1-0 by the end of the night. My picks are Stony Brook, UNH, Maine, and Albany.

(All games at 7 pm ET)

Vermont @ Stony Brook- Is this the game of the night? When you see the other match-ups, you will have to agree. Both teams have struggled mightily to produce consistent offensive output. Both teams have grinded out several victories. Look for a vicious battle on the boards between SBU's Tommy Brenton and UVM's Brian Voelkel, two of the AE's top five rebounders. For Vermont, this is a chance to avenge their loss in last year's conference tournament semifinals. After the Northeastern game on Friday, Becker made a note to the media that the Catamounts still have a bad taste in their mouth from losing that game. For Stony Brook, this is a chance to build on last year's trip to the conference championship game. This should be a close one, with a slight advantage going to Stony Brook because they are at home.

UMBC @ New Hampshire- Credit UMBC for scheduling Towson. Otherwise, the conference would probably have three winless teams heading into conference play. New Hampshire should win this game. This game actually features the conference's two rebounding leaders: Brian Benson of UNH and Chase Plummer of UMBC. Expect a rocking atmosphere of friends and family in Durham. Although, school hasn't started back up, so maybe just family.

Maine @ Binghamton- Justin Edwards and Gerald McLemore bring their show on the road. Have we come to a consensus that Maine was the most promising team in out-of-conference play? I don't think there is any doubt. Behind the brilliant coaching of Ted Woodward, expect Maine to run away with this one. The bright side of conference play for the Bearcats is that they get to play Hartford and UMBC twice. They're gonna win a couple of those, and they're gonna shock a mid-to-upper echelon team along the way. Write it down.

Hartford @ Albany- Here is a sentence I never thought I'd write: despite a 0-12 record, Hartford did not have a terrible out-of-conference stretch. Five of those games they lost by less than ten, and one of them took double overtime to decide (against Marist). However, this is not the game where they will break through. With maybe one or two exceptions, Albany has beaten the teams they should beat, and lost to the teams that are better than them. They are better than Hartford, they are at home, they have the league's OOC MVP, they should win.