College basketball storylines heading into the season

It has been over a year since the news of the FBI's investigation into college basketball recruiting was unveiled and while there haven't been any huge shakeups since the end of last season, the cloud that covers the sport isn't going away. Trials have already begun, and more are on their way along with depositions and testimonials that can drag people directly into the storm. Kansas' Bill Self has found that out, as his name and program have already been mentioned during the Adidas trial and other programs have been either implied or are directly named. There's a feeling that more coaches will be run over by this investigation — it is a matter of who and when.

Usually when we talk about rule changes, they involve the shot clock, or block/charge calls or some on-the-court move. This time the changes being rolled out are about the relationships players can have with agents and the NBA as well as how recruiting will be handled going forward. Quick recap: The NCAA will allow undrafted players to return to school as long as they were invited to the NBA's combine; "elite" high school and college players will be allowed to hire an agent in the offseason but must end that relationship if they go back to school; recruiting changes dealing with coaches attending shoe company tournaments; and the NCAA has allowed itself to piggyback off someone else's investigation if it wants to punish a school for wrongdoing. All of these are brand new and a response to the FBI investigation and will be in place next spring. We shall see if this is an improvement to the old system or if there needs to be more tweaking. 

Villanova has won two of the last three national championships, and the year it didn't it was among one of the best teams in the nation. So what becomes of the Wildcats in 2018-2019 after much of what led them to this wonderful run is gone? They are still going to be very good and are the favorites to win another Big East title. Eric Paschall and Phil Booth will step into bigger roles, and the program's success has raised recruiting, so this roster isn't bare. It isn't set up with the kind of experience that the Wildcats have been blessed with for the last three seasons but if they take a step back, it won't be a large one.

Duke brought in one of the finest recruiting classes you will ever see. These players are scary athletic and could spend all season bending those rattling Cameron Indoor rims with thunderous dunks. They will be fun to watch and could provide a nightly highlight reel. But can they shoot well enough to stretch the floor? Mike Krzyzewski's teams have usually relied on sharp shooters spacing the floor so that his big men or his slashers can do damage underneath. This isn't the kind of roster that can make that happen. 

Look, no one is going to take Virginia seriously again until it makes a big run in the NCAA Tournament. That wasn't just any old upset last year; that was the mother of all upsets. Virginia was the No. 1 overall seed that had gone 31-2 during the season and boasted one of the best defenses in recent years yet was blown out by No. 16-seeded UMBC in the first round of the dance. Much of that Virginia team returns for Tony Bennett this year, and players will have to navigate the season with that upset last March on their minds. The Cavaliers will be really good again, but the weight of that loss to UMBC will follow them all year.

One thing to love about college basketball is the amount of great non-conference games that litter the first couple of months of the season. Kentucky-Duke. Gonzaga-North Carolina. Kentucky-North Carolina. Michigan State-Kansas. Villanova-Michigan. Kansas-Kentucky. Xavier-Cincinnati. Tennessee-Gonzaga. Florida-Florida State. Not to mention all those preseason tournaments that span from Maui to the Bahamas. It's always fun for those programs to go up against the best in the nation, and that helps come tournament time.

Kansas has a ton of talent, but the best Jayhawks teams have had top-line guard play. Devonte Graham led the Jayhawks to the Final Four last year. He followed Frank Mason III's National Player of the Year season of 2017. Tyshawn Taylor and Mario Chalmers led Kansas the two times they reached the national title game under Bill Self. For much of Kansas' run of 14 straight Big 12 titles, the team has had experienced guard play. But this team doesn't have that. Graham is gone and the reins will likely be handed to freshman Quentin Grimes. He has the talent, but he doesn't have the experience that Self likes in his lead guards. The Jayhawks have an interesting mix of recruits, transfers and holdovers, and that has them as one of the favorites to win the title. But they need to get the guard play to see that through. 

Not since John Calipari's final four seasons in Memphis has this Tigers program felt the buzz that it's getting right now. Tubby Smith was ousted, and former Tigers star Penny Hardaway steps in. Since Hardaway retired from a long NBA career, he has done a lot for local basketball, developing tournaments, funding projects for his alma mater and coaching in the high school ranks. Not only is he popular due to his NBA run, but he also has connections in the recruiting world due to his time as a high school and summer circuit coach that has already reaped dividends. We still need to see Penny perform at this level, but the fan base is really excited. The Tigers haven't made the NCAA Tournament since 2014 and haven't advanced past the first weekend since Calipari's final season in 2009.

This year, Chris Mack takes over at Louisville, which is reeling from the scandals that ended the Rick Pitino era and tore down its 2013 national championship. Memphis is back in the major recruiting wars now that Penny Hardaway is heading up the Tigers program. UConn has moved on from Kevin Ollie just four years after he brought it a national title. Dan Hurley moves over from Rhode Island to take on the Huskies gig. Tom Crean takes over at Georgia while Jeff Capel leaves Duke as its top assistant to be the head coach at Pitt.

There are also some names you've heard of before taking on new jobs. Mark Gottfried (formerly at NC State) takes over at Cal State Northridge, Lorenzo Romar (Washington) heads up Pepperdine, Mike Davis (Indiana) is at Detroit, Johnny Jones (LSU) takes Davis' old job at Texas Southern and Tubby Smith (Kentucky, Memphis) is taking over at his alma mater, High Point. And former NBA players are getting their shots, as Walter McCarty takes over at Evansville and Darrell Walker heads to Little Rock.

In recent years, the RPI had become sort of like what a batting average is in baseball. It is a nice stat, but there are newer metrics that are better at telling the full story about how good players are. The NCAA Tournament selection committee has used a number of factors to determine not only who gets into the tournament but where the teams are seeded, with the RPI being one of those factors. Now comes the uninspiringly named NCAA Evaluation Tool (which neatly forms the acronym, NET) that adds in factors that the RPI didn't. Last year's confusing quadrant system is still around, so the selection committee is continuing to compile more stats and algorithms to make a tournament bracket that we are still going to slam on Selection Sunday. 

The Maui Invitational is one of the premier season tournaments in college basketball, featuring some of the best fields in the country. It began in 1984, two years after Chaminade beat No. 1 Virginia in one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Since then, Chaminade has hosted this tournament and is 8-92 during its history in the event. That history ends this year, as Chaminade won't be playing in the tournament in even-numbered years anymore. While this year's lineup of teams is great (Duke, Gonzaga, Auburn, Arizona, Xavier, San Diego State, Iowa State and Illinois), it is a bit sad to not see Chaminade there. Yeah, normally they have three straight losses each year — usually in blowout fashion — but the Silverswords bring a lot of charm to the island's event.

One good thing is that Chaminade will get to play two of the event's participants (Arizona and San Diego State this year) in exhibition games in years it is excluded from the Maui Invitational. 

For the past 36 seasons, Temple has had only two head basketball coaches: John Chaney and Fran Dunphy. Dunphy followed his stellar 17-year stint as the head coach at Penn (that saw him win 10 Ivy League titles) by taking on the tough task of following Chaney's 24-year run at Temple. He did so well, taking the Owls to the NCAA tournament in six straight seasons. Temple would move from the Atlantic 10 to the AAC and the success would go away — just one NCAA tournament in five years. This is his last year with the Owls (former player Aaron McKie will take over) but not by his choice. The school made this decision, which makes for an uncomfortable situation if Dunphy wasn't handling this with the class that the Philly legend exudes. Will Temple, which is talented enough, make a run to the tournament for its coach? 

Gonzaga finally broke through and reached its first Final Four in 2017 and held a lead over North Carolina in the final minutes before the Heels made enough plays to win the national championship game. The Zags are going to be that kind of good again this season and have a serious shot at winning a title. While Kentucky and Duke have a lot of young and exciting talent, it has been experienced teams that have won the last three national titles and Gonzaga certainly is that. Josh Perkins and Killian Tillie played in that 2017 title game, while stars Rui Hachimura and Zach Norvell return and the Bulldogs add Brandon Clarke, who averaged over 17 points per game as a sophomore at San Jose State. 

The Wolf Pack made a memorable run to the Sweet 16 last year (those wins against Texas and Cincinnati were epic) before losing a heartbreaker to Loyola-Chicago. The Wolf Pack felt they blew their shot at a Final Four bid, which was part of the reason Caleb Martin, Cody Martin and Jordan Caroline returned to school for their senior seasons. Add in the aggressive style of coach Eric Musselman, and there is a lot to love about the Wolf Pack this season. They have what you want: experience, scoring ability, seemingly never being out of any game and a hunger to do more. Musselman even scheduled a rematch against Loyola in Chicago. So can they actually get there? They have some solid opponents on their schedule (BYU, USC, Arizona State, South Dakota State, Utah), but it will be all about what happens in March. 

For about a decade now, the preseason predictions about the SEC are usually about who could possibly dethrone Kentucky. The Wildcats, indeed, have the kind of team that could win another national championship. But they won't just walk to a conference title. Tennessee returns much of the same team that won the SEC regular season title a year ago. Auburn will be in the thick of it with Austin Wiley back. Mississippi State returns the core of a squad that reached the NIT semifinals. Alabama and Florida will be tournament-level teams, while LSU may have the league's best player in Tremont Waters. Arkansas is always tough to handle. The league that used to be a basketball joke has the depth to challenge as one of the top conferences in college basketball.

Everyone gets so excited about the shiny new crop of one-and-dones each year that we tend to overlook the impact seniors have on determining the national championship. In 2016, seven players made up the first and second All-American teams. Four of the last five AP Players of the Year have been seniors. (Last year's winner, Jalen Brunson, was a junior.) This season could see the same. Luke Maye (North Carolina), Eric Paschall (Villanova), Admiral Schofield (Tennessee), Caleb Martin (Nevada), Ethan Happ (Wisconsin), Dean Wade (Kansas State) and Mike Daum (South Dakota State) head a solid class of seniors who will have big seasons for big-time teams. As we have seen over the last three tournaments, teams with upperclassmen have been cutting down nets in April and with a lot of freshmen-heavy lineups currently sitting atop the rankings, it will be interesting to see how these senior teams combat that in March. 

The one-and-done rule the NBA has instituted has been a cause for debate among college basketball fans for over a decade. The NBA knows this and could be open to getting rid of it when it opens up its collective bargaining in a few years. Until then, the Association has kicked around a proposal to select a certain amount of players who would be eligible to get paid to play in the G-League straight out of high school and not play college ball. That could mean the top high school talent never steps foot on a college campus, but it wouldn't get rid of one-and-dones. There will still be players who will go to school and leave after one season, and there are still a lot of questions about how the G-League proposal would even work. With recruiting an all-year grind, this issue isn't going away anytime soon. 

St. John's had quite the interesting season last year. The Red Storm once had an 11-game losing streak and then ended it with a win over No. 4 Duke. The very next game, they brought down No. 1 Villanova. Those two big wins meant next to nothing in an uneven 16-17 season, and there is a lot of pressure to show major improvement this year. Shamorie Ponds is a contender for Big East player of the year, and now St. John's gets Auburn transfer Mustapha Heron (he averaged over 16 ppg for the Tigers last year) who is immediately eligible to play. There's talent there to make the tournament, and head coach Chris Mullin is on an extremely hot seat to make that happen. There is a lot of change in the Big East this season, and there is an opportunity for St. John's to finally make a move. Making a tournament would be a fine start.

The Pac-12 won exactly zero games in the NCAA Tournament last season — amazing for a power league. Arizona, which was a popular sleeper pick to win the NCAA tournament when the brackets were released, was embarrassed by Buffalo in the first round, while the league's second place team (USC) didn't even get a bid. There really isn't any true national title contender in the league this season, but the overall quality is better. Oregon is retooled and will look to return as a contender after a down season. UCLA has talent but has already had some roster challenges before the season has even begun. Arizona may take a step back and will join Washington, Arizona State, USC and Colorado in the middle of the conference. The league looks to be better overall, but there is a stigma out there that the Pac-12 doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to its strength. The conference must restore its image if it wants to get a bulk of its schools tournament bids. 

It's difficult to truly state what Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles meant to West Virginia the last four seasons. First off, it is rare to have the same starting backcourt for four years, let alone one whose approach to defense defined your program. The leaders of "Press Virginia" are gone, and it will be interesting to see how that will affect the program going forward. Will Bob Huggins keep his aggressive pressing style and try to find new players to run it or was the era that left with Carter and Miles?  Brandon Knapper and Beetle Bolden  will get their shots this year and, while they most certainly won't be as solid as Carter and Miles were right away, they could make this a constant of West Virginia basketball. If it fails...well, it was fun while it lasted. 

Rarely do we get this kind of one-on-one focus as we will on Tobacco Road. Duke's Williamson has been the fan favorite with the YouTube dunks and freak athleticism from a guy with a 250-pound frame. Little has shot up the prep rankings and won both the McDonald's All-American and Jordan Brand Classic MVP Awards. Both should be high picks if/when they leave college, and both look to have exciting pro careers. The fact that they will go at each other in one of sport's greatest rivalries makes it even more fun. In the McDonald's game, the two matched up in a series of possessions that got the fans out of their seats. Both teams will be near the top of the rankings, and both have other guys on their teams who could challenge for national player of the Year. But this personal matchup will be played out from "afar" until the two tangle in February.

As we've mentioned, Gonzaga and Nevada are top-10 caliber teams that have an eye on reaching the Final Four. However, they aren't the only mid-majors (if you can even call them that) that could make a name for themselves this season. Loyola-Chicago brings most of the group back that went to a Final Four last spring. If you think that team can't do that again, just remember Butler earlier this decade. You have Marshall and its stud duo of Jon Elmore and C.J. Burks, who helped their team beat Wichita State in last year's tournament. BYU is looking to break a four-year NCAA Tournament drought. South Dakota State will be led by scoring big man Mike Daum and should make another NCAA Tournament appearance. Western Kentucky welcomes a one-and-done talent in Charles Bassey. Kellan Grady may be the most exciting player at Davidson since Steph Curry. Most of the top scorers who led Buffalo to that upset of Arizona in the tournament return. San Diego State is young and could be a year away from having a special season. While the big boys of Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina and Kansas are still hanging out at the top of the rankings, there are a lot of solid mid-majors that should make a dent come March.

Nothing happened to any of the major conferences, but we do have four schools that are switching leagues, two that are stepping up to Division I basketball and one that is a new program. Welcome California Baptist and North Alabama as they jump up from the D-II ranks to join the WAC and Atlantic Sun, respectively. Liberty will also be joining the Atlantic Sun as it leaves the Big South. Hampton (MEAC) and USC-Upstate (Atlantic-Sun) also join the Big South. North Dakota leaves the Big Sky for the Summit League, which already houses North Dakota State, South Dakota and South Dakota State. This will also be the final season for Savannah State in Division I as it will step down to D-II next year. Also, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne dissolved and new schools were formed. The athletic programs are now held at the new Purdue Fort Wayne. Alabama A&M has been ruled ineligible for postseason play due to not meeting Academic Progress Rate requirements. 

Last season, Texas Southern opened its season playing 13 straight road games. Opponents were Gonzaga, Washington State, Ohio State, Syracuse, Kansas, Clemson, Oakland, Toledo, Oregon, Baylor, Wyoming, TCU and BYU. All on the road...all losses. Yes, the Tigers began the year 0-13 but ended up winning the SWAC and making the NCAA Tournament — even winning a game before falling to Xavier. This year, the schedule is still aggressive, though it isn't as grueling. The Tigers go on the road to Baylor, Gonzaga, Iowa State, San Diego State, Evansville and Oregon before hosting Huston-Tillotson. They will then go to Arizona State and Georgia before hosting Concordia. Then it is back on the road for Tulane, Lamar, Texas A&M, Alcorn State, Southern and Prairie View. Last season, Texas Southern would go 12-6 in the SWAC and win the conference tournament. Then-head coach Mike Davis believed that the only way the Tigers would make the tournament was by winning the automatic bid, and the SWAC champ has traditionally been a No. 15 or No. 16 in the NCAAs anyway. So why not schedule a beast of a schedule and then be so battle-tested that the league grind will be comparatively easy? Well, they've been to the last two NCAA Tournaments and four of the last five. (The year they didn't make the NCAA Tournament, they were 16-2 in league play.) New head coach Johnny Jones inherited the team and its schedule and hopefully can repeat the program's success.

This season marks the 40th anniversary of Michigan State beating Indiana State for the NCAA Championship and the introduction of Magic vs. Bird. The actual game wasn't that good (the Spartans won by 11), but it matched two college stars — who would become rivals on the NBA's most iconic franchises — for the title. That game helped moved the Final Four into a much bigger role in American sports and into the spectacle it has become today. It is a shame that the two schools didn't schedule each other this year (maybe for the 50th anniversary?), but when the tournament rolls around, get ready to see replays and hear memories of one of the most important days in college hoops history.