Ladies and gentlemen, Al Walker and Rich Conover are live on the air.

The Binghamton athletic department unveiled its weekly hour-long radio show, “Horizons Bearcat Hoop Talk,” last night at South Side Yanni’s in Binghamton. Each Monday night from 7 to 8 p.m. Walker and Conover will present the state of their basketball teams, talk about their successes and failures on the court, preview upcoming match-ups and answer questions from fans.

Walker discussed a variety of topics, immediately introducing junior point guard Mike Gordon as his captain and premier player. Gordon, who earned all-conference third-team recognition and all-defensive America East accolades a year ago, is considered by the coaching staff to have immense potential as one of the top-flight point guards in the America East for the next two years.

The coaching staff also saw a shakeup. With Marlon Sears moving on to take an assistant’s job at Wagner, Walker engineered the return of former Bearcat standout Anthony Green as Sears’s replacement. Green helped lead the Bearcats when they first made the jump to Division I five years ago.

“It was a very easy decision to bring Anthony back into the family,” Walker said. “He has significantly improved our recruiting, especially in the Philadelphia area.” Green is a Philly native.

Walker also took the unusual step of singling out a freshman for praise. Often criticized by many fans for building his program around junior college transfers eligible for only two years, Walker sees newcomer Lazar Trifunovic as a four-year standout.

“One of them [the two big Serbian forwards] is certainly going to be playing significant minutes as a freshman this year and that’s Lazar Trifunovic,” Walker said. “He’s 6-foot-8, big and really skilled.”

In response to a submitted question near the end of the program, Walker also hinted that Trifunovic was athletic enough to see a little time at the small forward position. Steve Proctor, the favorite going into preseason to start at that position, is sidelined for six to eight weeks with a broken hand.

For the women, Rich Conover enters the 2006-2007 season trying to reverse a trend. Each time his team entered the year with a large and influential senior class, like in 2003 and 2005, they finished with an overall winning record. When the Bearcats fielded a team devoid of senior leadership, they have ended the season with a losing record. Conover said that the team will be successful for a second straight year due to its two seniors looking to significantly raise their games in the backcourt.

“We feel that some leaders will begin to emerge,” said Conover. “I think Shea Kenny, our starting point guard, brings a lot of stability. Rebecka Lindgren, who played a lot of minutes the past three years, is going to step up.”

Conover’s formula for success does not hinge only on Kenny and Lindgren. Junior Laine Kurpniece and Laura Sario look to carry a lot of the scoring load. Kurpniece earned second-team America East honors a year ago, leading the Bearcats in scoring and rebounding. Sario, easily one of the most physically gifted guards in the league, faced a trial by fire this summer when she made the senior Finnish national team and played significant minutes as one of its youngest players.

The initial show was a little short on specific answers to questions, but that will change as basketball season enters into full swing. For fans wishing to submit a question to one of the coaches for more information, the athletic department has provided a link on its Web site: www.bubearcats.com/coachshow/index.html