The whirlwind travel schedule finally caught up to Saint Mary’s.

After traveling from Moraga, Calif., to Dayton on Monday to defeat Middle Tennessee in the First Four on Tuesday, the Gaels skipped out of Ohio to go to Auburn Hills, Mich., against Memphis.

Even since his first season as a college head coach at UMass, John Calipari has thrived with freshmen. That season in 1988-89, Calipari had a rookie Jim McCoy, who averaged 19.8 points per game.

That freshman and that team didn’t resemble the recruiting empire Calipari built at Memphis and Kentucky where a glut of talented freshmen sign with Cal, win a ton of college games in one year and then go on to be NBA Draft picks.

Finishing the season on the NCAA Tournament bubble is a tight-rope walk to start. In addition to a handful of teams looking to build their NCAA Tournament resumes, bubble teams must also keep an eye on conference tournaments starting this week.

Bid Thieves are everywhere.

Butler coach Brad Stevens

The Hoosier State doesn’t belong to the Hoosiers, at least not entirely.

Even since his first season as a college head coach at UMass, John Calipari has thrived with freshmen. That season in 1988-89, Calipari had a rookie Jim McCoy, who averaged 19.8 points per game.

That freshman and that team didn’t resemble the recruiting empire Calipari built at Memphis and Kentucky where a glut of talented freshmen sign with Cal, win a ton of college games in one year and then go on to be NBA Draft picks.

This much is certain: The team returning to the mainland as the Battle 4 Atlantis champion will have earned it.

Athlon Sports continues its countdown to the start of the 2012-13 basketball season, which begins with the first games on Nov. 9, with a countdown of the nation’s top conferences. We will release one conference preview each day, counting down to the top conference.

Larry Brown returns to the college game for the first time in 25 years. His task: Lead SMU back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1993.

By Michael Bradley

One would imagine a 15-year NBA veteran and former No. 1 overall pick might have some trouble relating to the various personality types that populate a college basketball team. In many cases, that would be correct. Star players don’t have much in common with deep reserves or walk-ons.

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.