If you love college sports, this is the best time of the year. Right around Turkey Day, you're guaranteed the best of both worlds: an exciting and mostly controversial end to the college football season with Rivalry Week and Championship Saturday and BCS Selection Sunday on the horizon. Add to that plate, for the roundball fanatics, a return to the arena with early action and holiday tournaments from San Juan to Maui.
It's way too early to know definitively how things will play out in the college basketball season, but here are five things to keep an eye on for the 2008-09 season.
Can the Tar Heels pull it off?
The fate of North Carolina basketball and coach Roy Williams go hand in hand. Both in recent history have had teams that were destined to cut down the nets, only to suffer agonizing defeat by mysterious ways. In more blunt terms, they choked. Roy Williams and UNC both shook the stigma of choking in 2005 when they got the Siemens Trophy, but we can recall plenty of times when they didn't close the deal.
Remember the Tar Heel teams of '94, '95, '97, and '98? Or even two Roy Willams' teams at Kansas, namely, the '97 team thought to be one of the greatest ever featuring Raef Lafrentz, Scott Pollard, Paul Pierce, and Jacque Vaughn, upset in the Sweet 16 by eventual champs Arizona? How about the '98 team minus Vaughn, with an embarrassing loss to Rhode Island in the second round? And '02 and '03 teams had championship dreams only to falter in the Final Four to Maryland and the final against Syracuse.
Nonetheless, the Heels are stacked from top to bottom, with veterans Tyler Hansborough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, and Marcus Ginyard and a group of talented freshmen lead by Tyler Zeller, but they suffered a huge blow when he injured his wrist late in the win over Kentucky and may be lost of the season. However, all signs still point to Carolina and Roy Williams heading to Ford Field in April. The first big test will come ironically enough at Ford Field against Michigan State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge on Dec. 3.
Will patience be a virtue in the Bluegrass or Hoosier Nation?
Things have come a long way in Lexington and Bloomington. Gone, perhaps temporarily, are days when these two programs were among the elite in the rankings and when their annual meeting in the RCA Dome meant a battle royal for basketball majesties. There are major rebuilding projects with the Hoosiers and Wildcats. Billy Gillispie had a rough start in his first year at Rupp Arena, losing to Gardner Webb in the season-opener last year. Kentucky rebounded nicely to finish 12-4 in conference and Gillespie was named SEC Coach of the Year. Things started rocky again this season, however, with a crushing loss to VMI.
In Indiana, Tom Crean arrived from Marquette to clean up the disaster of scandals that was the Kelvin Sampson era. After losing Big Ten player of the year D.J. White and super freshman Eric Gordon to the NBA and with a very young, but promising team, it could be a season full of learning experiences for Crean and the Hoosiers. The key will be for the faithful at both schools to give Crean and Gillispie time to develop their young teams and not head to the town square with torches and pitchforks if they struggle this year.
Bracket Busters: major or myth?
Mark February 21, 2009 on your calendar: this is when ESPN will be sponsoring their "Bracket Buster" weekend. Many of the teams we saw last year made huge impacts last year in the tournament. The secret is out on mid-majors and the dangers they pose to the "elite" of college basketball (see Davidson last year). If you're a casual fan of college basketball and want a leg up on who to look out for once Selection Sunday is a wrap and the brackets are released, tune in and catch the Drakes, VCUs, Butlers, San Diegos, and Gonzagas that may look to wreck the common man's bracket.
What will Davidson's Stephen Curry do for an encore?
We saw Stephen Curry in his freshman year lead Davidson to the 2007 NCAA tournament and almost pull it out against Maryland with a 30-point effort in the first round. That performance put him on the watch list for 2008. After lighting up scoreboards once again last season and putting one of the all-time best individual performances in the NCAA tourney in getting Davidson within a whisker of its first Final Four ever, you can believe that Curry won't sneak up on anyone this year. He has already dropped 43 points on Oklahoma in a loss, is averaging 35 points so far, and is in the top 30 list for the Naismith Trophy. It will be hard for him to carry the Wildcats on his back yet again, but it's possible we could see him as a First Team All-American, Naismith finalist, and "the hunted" come March.
Who will be the Diaper Dandy to "drool for?"
Last year, Derrick Rose, Mike Beasley, and Eric Gordon all parlayed huge rookie seasons into NBA selections this season. This year, the spotlight will be on a few making debuts on campus this winter. Look out for Oklahoma's Willie Warren, Memphis's Tyreke Evans, USC's Demar Derozan (who came with his "homeboy" "Lil'" Romeo Miller), UConn's Kemba Walker, and Ohio State big man B.J. Mullens.
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