Midnight Madness kicks off the basketball season at Cornerstone University on Thursday, Oct. 2. Doors to the gym open at 11:15 p.m.

“It’s going to be the best one ever,” said Kara Overbeek, who is this year’s Midnight Madness general manager. “It’s a chance to get the community together and have fun and celebrate the beginning of the basketball season and win free stuff and dress crazy and hang out with friends and for freshmen to break curfew.”

Overbeek said 450 custom designed T-shirts will be given away.

“I’m so excited about it,” senior Jenna Plewes said. “I love collecting T-shirts. [Students] will…hopefully wear [the shirts] to games.”

The Midnight Madness staff is also planning to give away a free Nintendo Wii among other prizes. They will be providing pizza, doughnuts and music, as well.

Midnight Madness celebrates the first practice of the 2008-09 basketball season for each team. Both teams are expected to scrimmage.

Last season the women’s team advanced to the Sweet Sixteen at the National Tournament, finishing the season with a 25-9 record. This year, the majority of last year’s roster returned and they are optimistic about competing for a national championship.

“Heck yeah, we’re going all the way,” Plewes said about the upcoming season. “We have the talent and the heart to go all the way. [Most] of the players have the taste of what it was like to go to nationals last season. Everyone’s on the same page.”

Head coach Carla Fles set the team’s expectation high on-and-off the court.

“My vision is to be better than we were last year,” she said. “Better in the classroom. Better at relationship building and serving each other. Better as a team and statistically. We have the talent to repeat as conference champions and to make it further than last year at the national tournament.”

Fles said the team will rely on an experienced starting lineup. They are deep in the backcourt and hope to use that strength to overcome a thin frontcourt.

The team consists of Plewes, Overbeek, Tami Thelen, Dani Kraai, Brooke Carter, Alicia TerHaar, Ashleigh Lund, Krista Vink, Jodi Grandholm, Samantha Flietstra, Melissa Veltkamp and Robyn Veltkamp.

The men’s team finished with a 17-16 record last year, and fell one game short of the National Tournament.

“Our expectations are no different than any other year,” head coach Kim Elders said. “We expect to have a great season and contend for the WHAC title and make it out to Branson for the NAIA Championship.”

Fans can expect to see the same style of basketball the team has used in recent seasons.

“We will play the same style as we have for the last several years – full court man to man defense and push the ball up quickly on offense,” Elders said. “When in the half court, take advantage of our inside post game with Kingshott and Simons.”

He said the team will rely primarily on Matt Kingshott, Caleb Simons and Dominic Allen. The rest of the roster consists of Corbin Donaldson, Ryan Zwier, Dennis Jones, Bryce Semple, Kelvin DeVries, Scott Soldan, Jonathan Hoshor, Justin Yoder, Randy Jefferson, Ronald Bates and Dan Possehl.

Midnight Madness will be student’s first chance to see each team in action.