A tip to young sportswriters who want to write for big papers and do blogs one day: if you travel, and you submit expense reports, don't forget to turn in your receipts. Unless you enjoy multiple messages from the credit-card company on your voice mail. Or enjoy sitting in the office all day.

At least it gives some people (not me; that happened to a "friend'') time to ponder what might be going on in area college basketball in the next few years. Now that Todd Bozeman is in at Morgan State, after his eight years in exile and having learned a few things, here is what we have brewing around here:

* Maryland, which despite all the heat Gary Williams is feeling from fans with short memories, won a national title four years ago;

* Towson, led by a coach, Pat Kennedy, who has led four teams to the NCAA tournament eight times combined, and by Gary Neal, who averaged 26 points a game for his half-season;

* Loyola, led by one of Williams' longtime assistants, Jimmy Patsos, who turned a Terp transfer, Andre Collins, into one of the country's leading scorers;

* Morgan, with Bozeman, his 66-35 record and three NCAA trips at Cal (including the '93 win over Duke), and record of recruiting and coaching Jason Kidd and Shareef Abdur-Rahim, and ...

* Coppin State, with Fang Mitchell and the three NCAA trips, including the 1997 win over South Carolina, on his resume.

That doesn't include the schools from down the road who routinely lure players from this area, like Georgetown, George Washington and, uh, George Mason.

Of course, there are these things to consider: Maryland is on its little NIT mini-run, and now might be losing yet another assistant coach, Rob Moxley, this time after only one season. Towson, Morgan and Coppin had losing records last season, and Loyola (15-13) barely broke .500. And they're all going to have Mason thrown in their faces from now until one of them gets to the Final Four.

Nevertheless, that's a lot of wattage shining at local programs right now. If ever there was a chance to turn potential into results, this is it.