The Sneak Preview, hosted annually by Siena College, is a good way to get people thinking about the upcoming college basketball season.

Below freshman Marcus Hopper meets with Jack and Mary Ryan of Waterford.

This is my fourth time at the event and this year was quite frankly a lot different than the past few seasons.

This will be my fifth season covering Siena and in years past there were high expectations.

While those are the same expectations the players have year in and year out, this is certainly a different season for the Saints.
In the past three years Siena has seen Kenny Hasbrouck, Alex Franklin, Ronald Moore, Edwin Ubiles, Clarence Jackson and Ryan Rossiter come and go.

Those six players all scored 1,000 points in their careers and represent six of the top 34 scorers all-time in Siena history.

Here's how they stack up.
3rd - Ubiles, 1,939
4th - Hasbrouck, 1,917
5th - Franklin, 1,730
10th - Rossiter, 1,457
26th - Jackson, 1,164
34th - Moore, 1,070

This year, the leading returning scorer is senior Kyle Downey, who has 379 career points.

Obviously, this is a new-look team, especially with six freshmen.

Two of those players (Imoh Silas and Lionel Gomis) have been declared ineligible for this upcoming season by the NCAA.

Siena did win a small battle on Tuesday though, when it was ruled that both Gomis and Silas will have three years of elgibility, when they begin their careers in 2012-13.

"I’m really excited that Lionel Gomis will be able to get two years back," said Siena coach Mitch Buonaguro. "A lot of credit goes to our administrators at Siena. They did a lot of work."

The original decision where Gomis and Silas and an injury to Davis Martens means that the other four freshmen (Rob Poole, Marcus Hopper, Evan Hymes and DeVonte Beard) will have to step up.

"With the unfortunate circumstances that we have, we’re going to need the freshmen to grow up quick," said junior forward O.D. Anosike. "Frankly put, we need them to step in and play right away."

Buoaguro indicated that he hopes Hopper will step up, given the lack of big bodies up front.

MARTENS UPDATE: Buonaguro indicated that he knew the decision was coming to hold out Martens for the entire upcoming season.

Martens struggled with pain this summer and needed a specialized surgery, which should be totally solved if rehabbed properly.

This is a big loss for Siena because Martens had showed positive steps in flashes and needed more big bodies up front.

"I thought he made a jump last year," Buonaguro said. "That hurts. He has experience, too."

Martens will have to rehab for three months.

I also bumped into Just-in'love Smith at the event, who said that Martens is the godfather to his little girl.