AP
Burn baby, burn.
I've often lamented the poor manner in which college basketball muffs the start of its season. Instead of staging a dramatic, wall-to-wall we get a slow trickle of games out of the gate.
But when it comes to the start of practice, nobody does it better. That's right. I'm talking about ... practice.
So as diehards like us gear up for Midnight Madness, your resident Hoop Thinker is on hand to stoke your fire with 10 burning questions I'm looking forward to answering as the season gets under way. The games are still a few weeks away, but right now I am all ablaze with anticipation. Herewith, The Hot Ten:
1. IS DUKE READY TO FEEL THE HATE?
We all remember where the Blue Devils ended up last April. Less memorable is the fact that for most of the season they flew under the radar (by their standards, anyway). Before Feb. 22, Duke spent just one week ranked in the top five of the AP poll. On Selection Sunday, the consensus was that Duke was the weakest of the four No. 1 seeds. By the time the Blue Devils reached the Final Four, the efforts to revive the old theme seemed half-hearted. The team peaked too late to feel the hate.
Not this time around. The Blue Devils will likely be close to a consensus preseason No. 1 team, but lest we forget, they did lose three senior starters off last year's championship squad. True, they're adding superfrosh point guard KYRIE IRVING and transfer SETH CURRY, but it's a whole different matzo ball to enter the season with sky-high expectations. MIKE KRZYZEWSKI has been here before, but his players haven't. It remains to be seen how well these youngsters can fly while wearing such a heavy crown.
2. HOW WELL WILL KALIN LUCAS AND ROBBIE HUMMEL RECOVER FROM THEIR INJURIES?
It's unusual that two of the top three teams in the country begin the season with their best players recovering from major, season-ending injuries. Michigan State and Purdue are set to wage a scintillating battle for Big Ten supremacy this season, but in order to win the league and advance to the Final Four, they need big years from Lucas and Hummel, respectively.
Lucas ruptured his Achilles tendon in the Spartans' NCAA tournament second-round win over Maryland, and Hummel missed the tourney altogether after tearing the ACL in his right knee on Feb. 24. During reconstructive surgery on March 8, doctors used part of the patella tendon in Hummel's left knee to repair the torn ACL in his right, so he actually has two surgically altered knees to deal with heading into practice.
Lucas has been basically unrestricted in his preseason workouts with his teammates, and though he still needs to work his way through the recovery process he should be available to play in the Spartans' first game. Hummel was just cleared to practice this month, so it's not as certain that he'll be ready for the start of the season, but the odds favor it. Given that these are two of the most serious injuries a basketball player can sustain, there are no guarantees these guys will get back to where they were anytime soon. Equally certain is that neither Michigan State nor Purdue can win a Big Ten title, much less a national championship, without Lucas and Hummel at their best.
3. WHICH COACH WHO NEEDS A BIG YEAR WILL HAVE ONE?
I don't do preseason coaches-on-the-hot-seat lists anymore, so this is not about job security. But while there will be some notable guys who will be under duress because their teams are lousy (PAUL HEWITT and JOHN BEILEIN come to mind), the real pressure is always faced by guys who have been through a down cycle and now have the horses to pull them out of it. That's when you really don't want to underachieve.
The main candidate who comes to mind here is Illinois coach BRUCE WEBER, whose team has missed the NCAA tournament two of the last three years. Now the Illini have a strong senior nucleus of DEMETRI MCCAMEY, MIKE DAVIS and MIKE TISDALE, plus a strong crop of youngsters led by sophomore guard D.J. RICHARDSON. They should be playing for a high seed, not a bid and Weber knows it.
Another coach who needs a big year is Virginia Tech's SETH GREENBERG, who has been to just one NCAA tournament during his seven years in Blacksburg. Greenberg's Hokies return all five starters from the group that missed out on an at-large bid by a whisker, including an All-America-caliber guard in 6-foot-3 senior MALCOLM DELANEY. If we can see beads of sweat on Greenberg's pate on Selection Sunday, that will not be a good sign.
Then there's Memphis coach JOSH PASTNER, who will need his top-five recruiting class to put some distance between himself and the prodigious specter of JOHN CALIPARI. Pastner is off to a nice start, but his honeymoon is just about over.
4. DOES GONZAGA HAVE NEXT?
When I called MARK FEW last month to ask what advice he would give to Butler's BRAD STEVENS, he replied good-naturedly:
Now that Stevens appears to be establishing the same type of mid-major continuity that Few has created in Spokane, it's fair to wonder when the Zags are going to pull off a similar breakthrough and get to the Final Four. Lots of high-major coaches have gone through the knocking-at-the-door-but-haven't-broken-through crucible, and while some never get there (NORM STEWART and GENE KEADY, to name a couple), the ones who do usually reach the Final Four in a season when they're least expected.
Gonzaga fits that bill. Though they lost do-everything guard MATT BOULDIN to graduation, Few has lost better players in the past without missing a step. He still has one of the best forwards in the country in 6-8 German native ELIAS HARRIS, as well as a finecourt duo in 5-11 junior DEMETRI GOODSON and 6-5 senior STEVEN GRAY. All the Zags need are the right matchups in the tournament and a little bit of luck, and they'll take their rightful turn on the big stage. Suffice to say, Few hopes it will happen sooner rather than later.
5. HOW HARD WILL THE NCAA COME DOWN ON UCONN?
Friday doesn't just mean Midnight Madness at UConn. It is also the day when the school must appear before the NCAA's Committee on Infractions. Last week, the school publicly released its formal answer to the NCAA's allegations, but most experts (myself included) believe the NCAA will go further than UConn's self-imposed penalty of one scholarship reduction each of the next two years.
This burning question will hang over the first half of the Huskies' season, since we won't know the answer for several months. (Nor is there a definitive date that we'll find out.) But the implications go beyond the dimensions of the penalties. The reality is, JIM CALHOUN is 68 years old. He has been beset by health problems in recent years, and last year his team's season ended in the second round of the NIT. He has an acrimonious relationship with his athletic director, and there is no obvious person to succeed him as head coach. And he has not yet received a single verbal commitment from any player ranked in the top 150 in Rivals.com's rankings of the Class of 2011.
In other words, if the NCAA further shackles Calhoun's ability to recruit, it could set this program back so far that it might not recover for a long, long while. So stay tuned.
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