Athlon Sports presents 10 things to watch during the 2008-09 college basketball season.

1. Last-place Hoosiers?

In the modern era of Indiana basketball — which began with Bobby Knight’s introductory press conference in 1971 — the Hoosiers have suffered through only three losing Big Ten seasons. There was the 7–11 team in 1984–85 that lost in the NIT finals, the 8–10 team of 1989-90 that still received an NCAA Tournament bid, and the 7–9 team in 2003-04 under the watch of embattled coach Mike Davis.

Well, barring a miracle of epic proportions, a fourth losing Big Ten season appears to be inevitable, and a last-place finish isn’t out of the question. 

First-year head coach Tom Crean, hired to restore order after the Kelvin Sampson fiasco, inherits a roster that returns only one scholarship player, senior forward Kyle Taber, who scored a total of 28 points in 22 games. The Hoosiers were also expected to have the services of guard Jordan Crawford, who averaged 9.7 points as a part-time starter, but he bolted in June and ending up transferring to Xavier.

Heading into mid-August, the official Indiana roster listed 12 players. In addition to Taber, there are eight true freshmen (five on scholarship, three walk-ons), two incoming junior college transfers and one sophomore walk-on. Not exactly a recipe for success in the Big Ten.

So what happened to the Hoosiers, who still managed to record a 25–8 mark (14–4 Big Ten) despite facing constant distractions in the second half of the season? How did this roster become so depleted? Take a look:

Eric Gordon (20.9 ppg) — Early entrant NBA Draft
D.J. White (17.4 ppg) — Eligibility expired
Armon Bassett (11.4 ppg) — Dismissed
Jordan Crawford (9.7 ppg) — Transferred to Xavier
Jamarcus Ellis (6.8 ppg) — Dismissed
Lance Stemler (4.4 ppg) — Eligibility expired
DeAndre Thomas (3.6 ppg) — Dismissed
Mike White (2.3 ppg) — Eligibility expired
A.J. Ratliff (1.7 ppg) — Eligibility expired
Brandon McGee (1.5 ppg) — Dismissed
Eli Holman (1.0 ppg) — Transferred to Detroit

Crean was an outstanding hire for a school with a very proud tradition. Indiana might no longer be among the top three or four jobs in the country, but it’s not that far down the list. Crean will win big at Indiana — in the future. In the short term, however, the Hoosiers will struggle. If Crean can coax five Big Ten wins out of his first IU club, the season will have to be considered a success.

2. Gonzaga’s Best Team Ever?

It’s been quite a decade at Gonzaga. Over the last 10 years, the Bulldogs have advanced to the NCAA Tournament each season, have claimed nine West Coast Conference titles (eight outright) and averaged an amazing 26.4 wins per season.

What the Zags haven’t done, however, is advance to the Final Four. They came close in 1999 — the final year of the Dan Monson era — reaching the Elite Eight before falling to eventual national champ UConn. On three other occasions (2000, ’01 and ’06), they made it to the Sweet 16. But recently, coach Mark Few’s club has been a bit of a postseason underachiever. Gonzaga has failed to advance to the second weekend of the Tournament in six of the past seven seasons, including first-round exits in each of the past two years.

Well, don’t expect an early round disappointment in 2009. The Zags should be better than ever, thanks in part to Jeremy Pargo’s 11th-hour decision to return for his final season in Spokane. Pargo, a senior point guard, will lead a backcourt that also returns Matt Bouldin, the team’s leading scorer last season, and sharpshooters Steven Gray (46.3 percent from three) and Micah Downs (38.8 percent). The frontcourt will be anchored by fifth-year senior Josh Heytvelt, who should be healthy after undergoing offseason surgery on his foot, and emerging sophomore Austin Daye, who averaged 10.5 points and 4.7 rebounds as a freshman. The Zags suffered a scare over the summer when Daye injured his knee, but he is expected to be ready to go by the start of practice.

Few has done a tremendous job stocking his roster with top-flight talent. Including Daye and Gray, five of the Zags’ six scholarship freshmen and sophomores were ranked among the top 150 recruits in the nation by either Scout.com or Rivals.com. The only one who wasn’t, freshman forward Andy Poling, was also offered a scholarship by Washington. And most of his key upperclassmen were also highly sought-after recruits: Bouldin, Heytvelt and Downs (via Kansas) were each top 100 recruits, while Pargo was ranked No. 105 by Rivals.com.

As Few is well aware, talent alone will not guarantee a deep run in March. But this Gonzaga team appears well-equipped to exorcise some past NCAA Tournament demons and advance at least to the Elite Eight.

3. The Big East Is a Beast

With as many as nine teams meriting a spot in a preseason top 25 poll, including four deserving consideration for the top 10, it’s safe to say that the Big East will be the nation’s finest conference in 2008-09. Connecticut is receiving plenty of buzz as the league favorite, but Notre Dame, Louisville and Pittsburgh also have to be in the discussion.

The Huskies will be led by two emerging stars fresh off breakout seasons, point guard A.J. Price and center Hasheem Thabeet. Notre Dame returns 2008 Big East Player of the Year Luke Harangody, in addition to starting guards Kyle McAlarney and Tory Jackson. Louisville welcomes back do-it-all forwards Earl Clark and Terrence Williams and welcomes in one of the nation’s top recruits, 6'8" power forward Samardo Samuels. Pitt, meanwhile, will have the services of its top three scorers from last season, forwards Sam Young and DeJuan Blair and point guard Levance Fields.

The second tier of Big East beasts includes Marquette, Georgetown, Syracuse, Villanova and West Virginia. Marquette will have a new coach roaming the sidelines, as Buzz Williams takes over for his former boss, Tom Crean. Georgetown will add top-10 recruit Greg Monroe to a strong nucleus that includes Jessie Sapp, DaJuan Summers and Austin Freeman. Syracuse must replace top scorer Donte’ Green, but Jim Boeheim returns every other key ingredient, including scoring guard Eric Devendorf, who missed all but 10 games last year with a torn ACL. Villanova, which made a surprising run to the 2008 Sweet 16, returns its roster intact, including what could be the league’s best backcourt duo in Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher. West Virginia lost Joe Alexander to the NBA Draft, but Bob Huggins quickly reloaded by inking small forward Devin Ebanks, a top 15 player nationally, during the spring signing period. And don’t forget about Keno Davis’ Providence club, which is built to win this season.

Last year, the Big East tied its own record by sending eight teams to the NCAA Tournament. Don’t be surprised if that record falls in 2009.

4. Wake Is Back

Wake Forest boasts a rich basketball tradition dating back to the formation of the ACC in the mid-1950s. But over the past two-plus decades, the school has enjoyed only two pockets of sustained success — the Tim Duncan Years and the Chris Paul Years. Since the NCAA Tournament field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, the Demon Deacons are 66–30 in the ACC with six NCAA Tournament appearances in the six seasons either Duncan or Paul was on the roster; in the 18 years without one of their superstars, the Deacs are 107–167 in the league with six trips to the NCAA Tournament.

To a lesser degree, we can add Josh Howard to the mix as well. In 2002-03, the one season in which Howard truly emerged as an elite player — his scoring jumped from 13.9 points per game to 19.5 — Wake Forest won the ACC Championship with a 13–3 record.

So what’s the point? That Wake Forest needs good players to win? Doesn’t every team? Yes, but perhaps no major conference school’s success has been so dependent on the presence of a great player on its roster.

That bodes well for the 2008-09 Demon Deacons, who appear poised to make a big move up the ACC standings. Wake Forest returns every key player from last season’s painfully young team that went 7–9 in the league and welcomes in a consensus top 5 recruiting class. Three top 50 players — small forward Al-Farouq Aminu and centers Tony Woods and Ty Walker — join a strong nucleus led by super sophomores James Johnson (14.6 ppg, 8.1 rpg as a freshman) and Jeff Teague (13.9 ppg).

North Carolina still has a ton of talent, Duke figures to be strong once again, and Miami is loaded, but Wake Forest has to be mentioned with the elite in the ACC. That hasn’t happened since the day Paul bolted for the NBA.

5. Another Big to the Buckeyes

It started with Greg Oden. It continued with Kosta Koufos. Next in line is B.J. Mullens. For the third straight season, Thad Matta and his staff at Ohio State have secured the services of one of the nation’s elite prep centers. The 7'1" Mullens, a native of Canal Winchester, Ohio, committed to Matta as a high school freshman in 2004. He made it official last November, giving the Buckeyes yet another top-flight big man to anchor yet another stellar recruiting class.

“Back in the day, Arizona was known for point guards, and it should be noted in the history books that Columbus is where the big boys are created,” says Dave Telep, Scout.com’s national recruiting director.

Mullens was ranked No. 3 nationally in Scout.com’s final top 100 of the 2008 class and No. 1 in the final Rivals 150.

“He has a tantalizing combination of size, mobility and skill,” says Jerry Meyer, Rivals.com’s national basketball recruiting analyst. “You just don’t see a lot of 7-footers who can do the things that B.J. can do. He has a live body. He can really shoot the ball from outside and can score with his back to the basket. He runs the floor very well, and he’s an awfully tall fellow.”

Mullens isn’t regarded as highly as Oden, the first of the great big men to play for Matta at Ohio State, but he should make a bigger impact than Koufos, who was considered a bit of a disappointment despite averaging 14.4 points and 6.7 rebounds for the 2008 NIT champs.

“Mullens is a better athlete, a much better athlete, than Kosta,” says Meyer. “He’s more explosive. And I actually think B.J. can shoot the ball as well as Kosta. The one area where Kosta has him would be face-up ball-handling.”

Like Oden and Koufos, Mullens is expected to bolt to the NBA after one season as a Buckeye.

“With his skill set, his mobility and his size, I think he will really blossom in the pro game,” Meyer says.

6. A Down Year in the Pac-10

Last year in this spot we celebrated the (anticipated) emergence of the Pac-10 as the best conference in the nation. Well, the league failed to get seven team into the NCAA Tournament (as predicted), but it was still a banner season for the oft-underrated conference. A record-tying six Pac-10 schools received a bid — with a seventh, Arizona State, coming painfully close — and three of those teams (UCLA, Washington State and Stanford) advanced at least to the Sweet 16.

Well, the league’s reign atop the college basketball food chain appears to be short-lived. Simply put, the Pac-10 will take a significant step back this season. Consider the following: Eight of the league’s 10 teams will lose their leading scorer, and four of the five first-team All-Pac-10 selections and three of the five second-team picks will not return.

You could make a strong case that only two teams in the league — Arizona State and Washington — will be better in 2008-09 than they were in ’07-08. UCLA will still be the preseason pick to win the conference title, but it’s hard to make the claim that a team that loses Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute will be better.

Among the teams hit the hardest are Cal (Ryan Anderson, DeVon Hardin), Oregon (Malik Hairston, Maarty Leunen and Bryce Taylor), Stanford (Brook and Robin Lopez), USC (O.J. Mayo and Davon Jefferson) and Washington State (Derrick Low, Kyle Weaver and Robbie Cowgill).

You can pencil in UCLA, Arizona State and USC for the NCAA Tournament, but after that? Who knows? The Pac-10 might be headed back to its days as a four-bid league. 

7. Holiday Tournaments are Loaded

For those of you who don’t think college basketball really gets going until after the New Year, take a look at some of the Holiday Tournaments. The fields are absolutely loaded. Specifically, both the Old Spice Classic in Orlando and Maui Invitational are as packed with elite teams as any pre-conference tournament in recent memory.

The third annual Old Spice Classic (Nov. 27-30) is headlined by Gonzaga, Michigan State, Tennessee and Georgetown, four teams capable of making very deep runs in the NCAA Tournament. Add in Oklahoma State, a club with two McDonald’s All-Americans on its roster, and Siena, which returns all five starters from the team that blitzed fourth-seeded Vanderbilt in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, as well as Maryland and Wichita State, and you have a field that rivals any assembled.

The Maui Invitational might not be as deep as the Old Spice Classic, but it’s hard to argue about the star power at the top. North Carolina, the overwhelming preseason favorite to win it all, is joined by two other teams certain to be in almost everyone’s preseason top 10, Texas and Notre Dame. And Alabama, a favorite in the SEC West, is a quality team as well. Oregon, Indiana, Saint Joseph’s and host Chaminade round out the field.

The NIT Season Tip-Off features three heavyweights, Arizona, Purdue and Oklahoma, and the 2K Sports Classic includes Duke and UCLA, two teams with legitimate Final Four aspirations. Both of these tournaments begin on campus sites but end with semifinal and final match-ups at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

8. Monty crosses the Bay

The new Mike Montgomery, the California Golden Bear Mike Montgomery, is a changed man. He changed schools in one of the nation’s fiercest rivalries. Changed his approach to his career. He has changed his relationship with the media. A little. He might even smile from time to time.

First things first. Montgomery spent 18 years at Stanford, the Bears’ sworn enemy, and now finds himself in Berkeley, that wacky yin to The Farm’s serene yang. Imagine switching sides like that.

Montgomery doesn’t.

“Been there, done that,” he says in his trademark no-nonsense manner. “It was a great situation, and I had a great career there. But I’m retired from Stanford.”

Montgomery is done with the NBA, too. Or, rather, the NBA is done with him. He lasted two seasons with the Warriors, compiling a 68–96 record with a team that looks nothing like the club that advanced to the 2007 conference semifinals and posted a 48–34 mark last year. Come to think of it, now that Baron Davis has headed to the Clippers, Golden State looks a little more like the hand Montgomery was dealt back in ’04. Not that he’s sulking or anything.

“Maybe if I had more time I could have done things better,” he says. “Certainly, the roster changed drastically since I left. (Golden State has since added Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington.) But they made a good hire with Don Nelson.”

The Bears believe they have done the same thing with Montgomery, who returns to the college game in place of Ben Braun, who is now at Rice. This is big news, because Montgomery is the winningest coach in Stanford history and took the Cardinal to 12 NCAA tournaments in 18 seasons, including the ’98 Final Four. The man can coach.

But he hasn’t been coaching, at least not for the past two years. In addition to receiving about $10 million from Golden State, Montgomery has stayed current with the college game by handling some TV work and serving as a consultant to Stanford AD Bob Bowlsby. (There’s that rivalry thing again.)

“As time went on, I would be at a good game, and I would get excited about what I would say during a timeout or what needed to be done,” he says. “I felt a little bit unfulfilled.”

Should Montgomery succeed at Cal, he will be quite satisfied. He takes over a program that has some significant work to do, if only to become pertinent in a Pac-10 that has become much more powerful in the past few seasons. UCLA is a Final Four regular. USC has it going. So does Washington State. Arizona State is better. Oregon, Stanford and Washington have all been NCAA Tournament teams in the past five years. And Arizona remains dangerous. Is there room for Cal, which has to grapple not only with stringent academic requirements but also a lack of facilities?

Montgomery must find a way to lure top players to a program that hasn’t been horrible — Braun led five teams to the tourney — but isn’t necessarily mentioned among the elite, even on the West Coast. “This isn’t an easy place,” Montgomery says. “Things don’t always get done in an hour here. It takes time.”

And what of that Jan. 17 trip to Palo Alto? Does Montgomery expect a warm reception? It doesn’t seem to matter to this taciturn man. He’s at California now, and that’s just fine.

“I talked to some of my ex-players and some people I respected with Stanford ties, and they said, ‘Go for it,’” Montgomery says.

So, he’s going for it. It’s a new day for Mike Montgomery, and that’s just fine with him.

— Michael Bradley

9. The Wild (SEC) West

The SEC West is annually the most difficult division or league to project among the high-major conferences. In fact — and we probably shouldn’t publicize this — Athlon Sports has only correctly predicted the division winner one time in the past six seasons (the 2005-06 LSU Tigers).

This year, the division could be as wide open as ever. You could make a compelling case for almost every team to finish first (or last). Let’s take a closer look.

Alabama

Pros: Ronald Steele is an elite point guard, swingman Alonzo Gee is an explosive scorer, and coach Mark Gottfried welcomes the top recruiting class among teams in the West.

Cons: Steele missed all of last season with a knee injury, Gee is one of the league’s most inconsistent players, and Gottfried has never been regarded as an elite X’s and O’s strategist.

Arkansas

Pros: Second-year coach John Pelphrey is bringing in some top-flight talent on the perimeter, and the Hogs are always a tough out in Fayetteville.

Cons: The Razorbacks simply lost too much talent. Pelphrey expected to be without the four recently departed seniors, but the offseason loss of junior guard Patrick Beverley (12.1 ppg, 6.6 rpg) is a huge blow.

Auburn

Pros: Korvotney Barber is back after missing all but 10 games last season with an injury, the Tigers welcome in some much-needed perimeter shooters, and Jeff Lebo is one of the league’s better coaches.

Cons: Leading scorer Quan Prowell and uber-athlete Frank Tolbert are no longer around, and the Tigers still lack size.

LSU

Pros: LSU boasts a terrific four-man nucleus of point guard Garrett Temple, shooting guard Marcus Thornton, small forward Tasmin Mitchell and emerging big man Chris Johnson, and new coach Trent Johnson will provide an upgrade on the sideline.

Cons: The Tigers will lack depth, and for all of Temple’s contributions, they still don’t have a true point guard.

Ole Miss

Pros: The backcourt is outstanding with super sophomore Chris Warren running the point and David Huertas on the wing, and sophomore big man Malcolm White should take a big leap with more playing time.

Cons: With big men Dwayne Curtis, Kenny Williams and Jermey Parnell no longer around, the Rebels will be one of the league’s smaller teams.

Mississippi State

Pros: Jarvis Varnado is the among the nation’s best shot-blockers, Barry Stewart is a quality shooting guard, and let’s give Rick Stansbury some credit: The Dogs have won or shared four of the past six division titles.

Cons: State lost two of the league’s top players in point guard Jamont Gordon and power forward Charles Rhodes, and another quality part, Ben Hansbrough, has transferred to Notre Dame.

10. And Finally …

There was absolutely no debate on the team we are picking to win the 2009 national title — it’s the North Carolina Tar Heels. Tyler Hansbrough’s decision to return for his senior season put the Heels on the short list; when his three teammates — Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson and Danny Green — announced their intentions to return as well, Roy Williams’ club became the easiest preseason pick (maybe in any sport) in recent memory.

The Tar Heels welcome back their top six scorers from a team that went 36–3 overall (14–2 in the ACC) and advanced to the Final Four. North Carolina boasts the nation’s best player (Hansbrough), one of the elite point guards (Lawson) and a collection of superb complementary parts. In addition, UNC regains the services of savvy senior point guard Bobby Frasor, who missed the final 27 games of last season with a knee injury.

There are obviously no guarantees, but if the Tar Heels remain relatively healthy (meaning Hansbrough doesn’t get hurt), it will a surprising development if they are not the team cutting down the nets at Ford Field in Detroit.

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