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.

The Big 12 may be one of the most interesting leagues from top to bottom in 2012-13, but the smart pick at the top remains, as always, Kansas.

The Jayhawks have won at least a share of the last eight Big 12 regular season titles, including the last four outright. Thomas Robinson is gone from Lawrence, but Bill Self again has stars ready to emerge.

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.

College football season hasn’t begun, but here at Athlon we’re already hard at work in thinking about the 2012-13 basketball season. Believe us, the season will be here before you know it.

The Big 12’s trade of Missouri and Texas A&M for West Virginia and TCU appears to be a small downgrade as far as basketball is concerned.

March Madness has lacked some excitement this year, and one reason seems obvious. Besides badly-officiated contests, a lack of shooters and no buzzer-beaters, the missing ingredient has to be the absence of Gus Johnson announcing games. We have compiled some of his past tournament gems, along with some other great calls from the man who gets buckets.

2006 – UCLA 73, Gonzaga 71

There are only ten undefeated teams left in college football. Four of those squads — Stanford, Oklahoma State, LSU and Wisconsin — will face challenging upset bids on Saturday. The Cardinal host Washington, as Huskies quarterback Keith Price has thrown for at least three touchdowns in every game this season.

Andrew Luck of Stanford and LaMichael James of Oregon seemed to lead every preseason All-America list.