The college basketball season starts today, so it's time for picks. Not just for the Final Four and top players and coaches, but also who we think who will thrive, flop and surprise.

Here are the picks from the Athlon editorial staff:

A dozen years have passed since a Big Ten last claimed a national title. Since Michigan State won the 2000 title, four conferences have won at least two national titles. The Big East and SEC have claimed three titles. The ACC has claimed four.

Football is still in the heart of its season. The NBA is just getting started. And the election was only yesterday.

In other words, it may be easy for college basketball to fly under the radar for the start of its season this weekend.

If it’s tough to pull away from football or other responsibilities in November, we’d like to help steer you the key games, teams, players and trends to watch as the college basketball season gets started Friday.

Sometimes a coach inherits a bad team or steps into a program where the university simply does not invest in basketball. In some cases, through recruiting, Xs and Os and inspiration, that coach can turn a bad team into a good or even great one.

The guys on this list are not those coaches. Here are the 20 worst coaching tenures in the six major conference since the NCAA Tournament expanded in 1985.

A season can be changed by an injury. In the same way, 10 teams are hoping a key player returning from injury will change their fortunes for 2012-13.

Among those players returning from injury include a forward with All-American potential at Minnesota, a key veteran at rebuilding North Carolina, and explosive guard at USC and former starters at three SEC schools.

After a year in which the Pac-12 regular season champion failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, none of the programs in the league made a coaching change.

That’s partly a testament to some of the new coaches in the league or the built up credibility for some of the others. But it was a mild surprise after the entire league struggled en masse for another season.