There are maybe a half-dozen regular-season games worth circling on the calendar prior to the start of the basketball season, and one of them takes place in Gorham, Maine tonight. Two top 5 women’s squads and neighborhood rivals tip off at 6 pm eastern when Southern Maine hosts Bowdoin.

I’ve been to one meeting between the two (2004 NCAA Tournament, Sectional Semis) and I’d endorse the rivalry as one worth the price of admission. The matchup is as even as it is intense and both teams play smart, play hard, and are well coached. Basically, it’s a great advertisement for the sport of women’s basketball.

I’m inclined to think that Southern Maine is due to win. Bowdoin has won the last seven meetings between the two, so the history favors the Polar Bears, but homecourt favors the Huskies, who have already won against a couple of tough opponents this year in Williams and Bates.

Southern Maine returns all five starters from last year’s team and we got a good sense last season of just how good Ashley Marble and Megan Myles are when they almost carried their team past Randolph-Macon in the national semis.Their rotation doesn’t appear to have changed much, so I imagine familiarity is a big part of their early success.

Bowdoin, as mentioned in a prior post, added three freshman to its rotation this season and they’ve joined the mix without missing a beat. If the Polar Bears win, it will be with defense (the Polar Bears held Southern Maine scoreless for the first 12 minutes in last year’s meeting), as it always seems to be.

The thing I’d be most curious to see is how often Bowdoin goes to its pressure defense against a team that handles the basketball rather capably. Free throw shooting could also be an “x factor” in this game. Bowdoin has shot free throws at 63 percent this season, compared to 70 percent for Southern Maine.

We’re not able to attend this one, so if anyone wants to provide instant analysis on what we missed, feel free to do so here. In the meantime, you might want to check out this story on Maine’s Division III basketball rivalries and success stories.