Success in Maui has been a good sign for most teams in recent years. Two of the last four Maui Invitational champions have gone on to win the national title (2008-09 North Carolina, 2010-11 Connecticut). Players like Kemba Walker, Ty Lawson, Kyle Singler and Adam Morrison have thrived in this tournament in recent seasons as well.

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:

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.

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.

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.

Stars like Syracuse’s Fab Melo (Brazil), St. Bonaventure’s Andrew Nicholson (Canada) and Vanderbilt’s Jeffrey Taylor (Sweden) and Festus Ezeli (Nigeria) may have left the college ranks for the NBA in June, but that doesn’t mean the college game isn’t still flush with international talent.

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.