Here comes opening day and to get the feel for how different the college basketball landscape seems this season, imagine Zach Edey now shooting 3-pointers in the NBA. Or Tony Bennett double-checking his Virginia retirement plan while scanning the Indeed website for a part-time job. Or John Calipari starting off his day with a rousing Wooo Pig Sooie!
Yep, things have changed since we left the sport last April, with the Connecticut Huskies in full repeat mode, stringing together double-digit wins like they were decorating a Christmas tree in Storrs. Two Shining Moments for UConn. But now it’s next year.
The Big 12 has 16 teams, and really, what says Big 12 tradition more than Arizona vs. UCF? The Big Ten now has 18 teams, including the UCLA Bruins, who immediately boosted the conference trophy inventory since their 11 national championships are only one fewer than the league’s other 17 programs combined. The Atlantic Coast Conference now includes the California Bears, whose campus is four miles from the Pacific coast and 3,000 miles from league colleague Miami. Also, Stanford, who has played California 285 times in basketball but never Clemson or North Carolina State and is 0-13 all-time against North Carolina.
The Southeastern Conference is now home to Texas and Oklahoma, who between them have played Kentucky in basketball only five times in history and lost all five. Speaking of the Wildcats, the program with 49 league titles was picked to finish eighth, behind seven programs that have 37 SEC season championships combined. And when Kentucky hosts Arkansas on Feb. 1, Calipari will be on the other bench. That’s one of 69 coaching changes this season, meaning roughly one of every five Division I programs has a new face at the top.
That includes Virginia, where Bennett’s sudden retirement was the biggest shocker to hit Cavalier basketball since UMBC in the first round in 2018. With his departure, every national championship coach from the previous decade -- 2010-19 – is no longer at the place where he cut down the nets. Then again, Greg Kampe, whose Oakland team electrified March last spring by bringing down Kentucky, is starting his 41st season at the same post.
The national player of the year spot on the podium is open again, with two-timer Edey now employed by the Memphis Grizzlies. The list of possible candidates includes North Carolina’s RJ Davis, Alabama’s Mark Sears, Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson and Duke’s Cooper Flagg. Davis has played in 138 college games, Sears 133, Dickinson 127 . . . and Flagg none. He was in high school this time last year.
This is to be a season for notable anniversaries of landmark events. It has been 50 years since Wooden won his last title, 10 years since Mike Krzyzewski’s last and 20 years since Roy Williams’ first. It was 40 years ago that Villanova missed one shot in the second half of the national championship game to stun Georgetown.
It might be a fine year for some teams to ease frustrations.
Take preseason No. 1 Kansas. The Jayhawks haven’t made it past the first weekend in the past two years and while that’s not exactly a drought, we’re talking Lawrence, where glory is a given.
There’s even more urgency at Kentucky, where new coach and old Wildcat Mark Pope faces a shaken Big Blue Nation that needs soothing. The Wildcats have won one NCAA tournament game in four years and when some of the faithful aren’t still having nightmares about the second half against Saint Peter’s, they dream about the kid who made all the 3-pointers for Oakland.
Other sturdy names could use some shining of their auras. Indiana has not been to an Elite Eight in 22 years, Louisville has missed four consecutive NCAA tournaments and Syracuse three, which might not sound like much but they represent the longest March dry spells for the Cardinals in 66 years and the Orange in 52. Rutgers has one NCAA tournament victory in 41 years, Missouri one in the past 13 tournaments, St. John’s none in the past 23, Nebraska none ever. Arizona, a pillar of the West, has not seen a Final Four in 23 years. Tulsa’s history includes three coaches – Nolan Richardson, Tubby Smith and Bill Self – who eventually won national championships elsewhere, but the last tournament win for the Hurricanes was in 2003. Michigan State leads the world with 26 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances but the Spartans have not quite been themselves lately; their past four tournament seeds have been 9, 7, 7 and 11. Iowa hasn’t been to the Sweet 16 this century. Once the first tip goes up Monday it will take 155 days to sort everything out and decide a champion in San Antonio’s Alamodome on April 7. By then, what might we see?
🏆 UCONN WINS 2024 TITLE: How it happened
Dan Hurley admitted to the club that has only John Wooden as a member?
That would require a threepeat championship, which is asking a lot given the talent Connecticut lost. But he turned down the open checkbook of the Los Angeles Lakers to take a whack at reloading for another run. The Big Ten finally ending its most conspicuous quarter-century title drought?
Now that the league has ballooned to 18 schools, chances are increased by sheer numbers. And if that doesn’t work, maybe the Big Ten can next offer membership to the Celtics. Not that the conference hasn’t been trying to break through; Purdue was the seventh different Big Ten program to lose a national championship gameplay in the past 22 tournaments. But please note, not one conference team is in the Associated Press preseason top-10.
But five Big 12 teams are there. Will the new-look league send a wave to San Antonio?
Kansas, Houston, Arizona and Baylor are all top-10ers. So is Iowa State, where the one and only Final Four was in 1944.
Will it be Gonzaga’s time to finally win it? Mark Few is arguably the most renowned active coach without a title and he turns 62 this season. Still plenty of time, it seems, but then again, given the demands of coaching modern college basketball – the NIL intrigue here, the gushing transfer portal there – some coaches apparently don’t want to stay forever. Think Tony Bennett and Jay Wright.
Is there a Final Four door open for any of the ranked teams who have never been? We’re looking at you Creighton, Tennessee, Texas A&M.
Will St. John’s get to March? If so, that would be the sixth different NCAA tournament school for Rick Pitino, and nobody has done that.
So the storylines are endless as the season begins. Anything seems possible in a sport where a Big Ten showdown in February is Rutgers at Washington.
