They’re excited to see someone else.

And the North Idaho College men’s basketball team will get that chance today at Rolly Williams Court.

Even better, they won’t even have to wait around for tipoff.

Jalen Burkett, a 6-foot-6 sophomore from Phoenix, is the lone returning starter for the Cardinals, who open the season against Northwest College of Powell, Wyo., today at 4:30.

“We’re really big this year in our starting lineup,” said NIC coach Corey Symons, who begins his fourth season as head coach. “We’ll be able to use our size, but still be able to get up and down the floor really well.”

Freshman point guard RayQuan Evans (6-5), Tyler Brimhall, a 6-5 shooting guard, Keegan Crosby, a 6-7 shooting guard and Jarod Greene, a 6-9 forward from Blackfoot round out the starting five for today’s game.

Brimhall is a transfer from Idaho, and Crosby played at Nathan Hale in Seattle. Aushanti Potts is a 6-2 transfer from the College of Southern Idaho (where former NIC coach Jared Phay is the head man), and is expected to come off the bench early on.

“He’s a scoring wing and has a little bit of speed,” said Symons, who added that Connor Chapman (6-6) from O’Dea High in Seattle and Coeur d’Alene High product Brody Lundblad (6-3) will also see time in a reserve role.

“The nice thing about Brody is that he just competes. He just comes out and plays hard and makes good passes. He doesn’t need to score as much here, but he also defends really well. He works his tail off and it’s going to be fun to see him in a Cardinal uniform.”

NIC was ranked 19th in the nation in a preseason poll released by Street and Smith’s. The Cardinals finished 25-5 last year in their first season as a member of the Northwest Athletic Conference. NIC lost in the first round of the conference tourney.

“We haven’t changed much with our recruiting and tried to recruit some big-time talent and play those bigger junior colleges,” Symons said. “We’ve tried not to change things up. We’re not as deep, but still have some really good talent and will be able to compete with anyone.”

NIC will also host Northwest again on Saturday with an 11 a.m. tipoff.

“I kind of like playing late games, but it doesn’t hurt to play early now and then,” Symons said. “We had to play early at the NWAC Championships last year, so hopefully by scheduling a few of them this way we can get used to that this year.”

NIC opens East Region play on the road against Yakima Valley on Jan. 6. The top four teams from each region advance to the NWAC Championships at Everett Community College March 8-11, with semifinal and final games to be played March 17-18.

“We’ve been going hard for 8 to 10 weeks,” Symons said. “We’re just excited to play someone else right now.”