We're just two days away from the first home event of the 2010-11 seasons as the soccer teams take the field on Friday.  And with the new seasons come the development of new features at our online home for Freed-Hardeman sports.

Hopefully you have noticed changes and additions that have taken place over the course of the last three years.  Our goal is to make GoFHULions.com an informative, interactive and fan-friendly resource for you to keep up with FHU athletics.  In that time, we've had two site redesigns (the latest of which placed fourth in the NAIA-SIDA publication awards this summer); the integration of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube; and video highlight packages from basketball ust to name a few.

Here are some of the new things you can look for at GoFHULions.com this year:

* Live streaming video: Still in the developmental stages but we should be able to start this for volleyball, which opens at home next Tuesday.  As plans become more final for other sports, we'll keep you updated.  As of now, events will be streamed on our UStream channel.  The future may lead us somewhere else, who knows?

* Desktop wallpaper: Thanks to the efforts of Bradley Field, we will have downloadable desktop wallpaper.  Soccer and volleyball wallpaper is already available, and more will be on the way in the future.

* Post-game interviews: Look on our YouTube channel for post-game interviews with coaches (and maybe even player) after all home games and select road games.  The videos will also be embedded at the end of the game recaps.

* Weekly (?) podcasts: The first step will be launching these podcasts, which will feature news updates, interviews and...other stuff.  This is still very early in the planning stages.

As always, we will post scores and recaps as soon as we can after games.  Looking forward to another great year of FHU athletics!

Coach Shelton called it the best dunk contest he's had in his six years of running the boys basketball camp at Freed-Hardeman.

Lucky for him, and even more lucky for the campers, there'll be three more summers of dueling dunks between incoming freshman Chandler Mack (who is expected to redshirt) and freshman Daniel Gravatt (who redshirted last year).

Here's Mack leaping over a ball rack in a single bound (skip to 1:02 to see the actual dunk):

Not to be outdone, Gravatt goes old-school Isaiah Ryder on us with his reprise of Ryder's "East Bay Funk Dunk":

The dunks continued in the intrasquad game that followed with Gravatt getting two more - including an alley-oop from point guard Anthony Sampson - and a powerful one-handed dunk from another freshman, Reggie Gilmore.

Both FHU basketball teams face an important three days in conference play starting tonight in Batesville, Ark.

The Lions have been able to shake off a mid-season slump to win four straight games and now find themselves tied with Trevecca Nazarene (Tenn.) for second place in the TranSouth Conference at 5-1, a half-game behind Union (Tenn.).

FHU's men opened the season ranked No. 18 in the NAIA, but a stretch that saw six losses in seven games contributed to their fall out of the top 25 and almost out of the poll entirely.  In the season's fourth ranking on Jan. 18, the Lions received one vote.

But, after four convincing wins including an 81-62 road victory over then No. 11 Trevecca, the Lions could be on the verge of returning to the top 25.

A lot of that rests on the outcome of another conference game tonight when Trevecca visits Union.

Without going into detail on how the conference ratings and national ratings are tied together, the important thing to understand is that Union and Trevecca are currently ranked 1-2 in the conference - which means, despite the 19-point road win over the Trojans, FHU cannot be ranked ahead of them in the national poll.

But a Union win over Trevecca tonight coupled with a pair of wins by FHU on Thursday (at Lyon) and Saturday (vs. Bethel) should result in the Lions moving back ahead of TNU in the conference poll and, subsequently, the national poll.

Remember that it was this time last year when the Lions got hot and rolled off 12 straight wins, jumping into the top 25 and staying there for the rest of the year.  Coach Jason Shelton's M.O. is to put his teams through a brutal non-conference schedule in order to be prepared for conference play.  It worked last year, and early returns show it working again this year.

The Lady Lions are playing for something different, both from what the men are and from what they are used to.

FHU's streak of 28 consecutive appearances in the NAIA top 10 was broken this Monday, when the Lady Lions went from No. 6 to No. 15 on the heels of a three-game losing streak.  They are currently 3-3 in conference play and in a three-way tie for fourth place with the two teams they play this week - Lyon and Bethel.

Wins in each of those games would go a long way in making the statement that the Lady Lions aren't done, despite what you might read on some message boards.

FHU posted blowout wins over Mid-Continent (Ky.), 109-48, and Blue Mountain (Miss.), 94-66, to break the skid but still struggled from behind the arc in three of the four halves of those games.  Three-point shooting has been a key factor for the Lady Lions this season - in each of their four losses, they only managed to make five or fewer.  Conversely, they are 12-0 in games where they made at least six 3-pointers.

As I blogged last week, teams go through stretches where the shots just don't fall, and the Lady Lions are no exception.  And if the shots aren't falling from the outside, they'll have to find a way to win these two games if they want to have an opportunity to get back into the top 10.

While they haven't been in this exact position in several years, the players are used to playing important games and Coach Dale Neal knows how to win them. 

That reputation will be put to the test over the next three days.  But if history is any indication, don't bet against the Lady Lions. 

Figuratively speaking, of course.