It's shaping up to be a big year of basketball in Kentuckiana: Indiana, Kentucky and Louisville will be in the top national three of the Athlon Sports 2012-13 College Basketball annual when it hits newsstands in late September.

None of these teams is without its flaws, whether it's youth, experience or a deficiency somewhere on the court. We asked our members of our editorial staff for their thoughts on what might hold these teams back from achieving their goals.

With roughly 340 teams in Division I basketball, some players are bound to fall through the cracks.

We’d like to do our part to rectify that by highlighting some of the key players you may have missed last season. A handful of reasons led to these players going overlooked and underrated nationally: Chief among them is an absence from the NCAA Tournament. Some made all-conference teams. Some had impressive statistics, but for whatever reason, only hardcore fans knew their names.

In 2012, 30 of 68 teams in the NCAA Tournament field missed out a bid a season earlier.

The tally included eight from the six major conferences, including returns to prominence for Indiana and NC State. A quarter of the Sweet 16 -- the Hoosiers, Wolfpack, Baylor and Ohio -- was comprised of teams that a year earlier were either in consolation tournaments or missed the postseason altogether.

In 2012-13, Tournament droughts undoubtedly will end with a handful of teams capable of reaching the second weekend.

With Midnight Madness less than two months away, our look at some of the biggest questions in college basketball for 2012-13 continues into its second week.