Maybe you haven’t thought much about college basketball since the (pretty weird!) Final Four back in April. Maybe you’re the kind of casual fan who tunes in when the games start and doesn’t follow all the (pretty extreme!) player and coaching movement during the offseason.
If so, never fear. The 2023-24 season tips off in a little more than two weeks, and we’re here to catch you up with the biggest storylines you need to know going in
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1. Revenge of the blue bloods? Yeah, the 2023 Final Four felt strange, with non-power conference teams Florida Atlantic and San Diego State crashing the party along with Miami, which is not exactly known for its rich basketball history. The scales might tilt back toward the traditional powers this year if the preseason rankings are close to being accurate. The AP top 10 is filled with recognizable, banner-hanging brands like Kansas (No. 1), Duke (No. 2), Michigan State (No. 4) and defending champion UConn (No. 6). Then again, Florida Atlantic brings back virtually every player from a season ago and looks to make another run. And with the extra COVID-19 year, NIL and the transfer portal, the sport is as unpredictable as ever, gloriously.
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2. Year of the Big, Part Deaux: Last preseason, everybody was talking about all the dominant big men who returned to school, including the reigning player of the year. It was called the Year of the Big, but it might have been the start of the decade of the big. Thanks to how centers are devalued in the NBA and lucrative NIL opportunities in college, campuses are suddenly flush with premier post players. Purdue’s 7-foot-4 Zach Edey will try to do what Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe could not: become the first repeat national player of the year since Virginia’s Ralph Sampson three-peated in the early 1980s. Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson, North Carolina’s Armando Bacot, Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner and UConn’s Donovan Clingan are among the other centers (worthy) of attention.
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3. Curtain call for conference coherence: The Pac-12, at least as we know it, will cease to exist after this season. UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington are headed to the Big Ten. Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado are going to the Big 12 (which brings in Houston, BYU, Cincinnati and UCF this season). The ACC is going bi-coastal by adding Cal and Stanford, plus SMU. This will be the final season when league play makes any sort of geographic sense and when NCAA Tournament at-large selection won’t be hopelessly difficult.
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4. Rick Pitino’s back in the big time; Jim Boeheim and Bob Huggins are gone: After three seasons at Iona, and six years after being fired by Louisville, the 71-year-old Pitino is back in the Big East, where he made his first Final Four at Providence in 1987. He has completely revamped the St. John’s roster, and no one doubts he’ll win big soon … if not this year. The list of other coaching legends prowling the sideline, however, continues to shrink. Boeheim retired in March following his 44th season as Syracuse’s head coach, handing the reins to longtime assistant Adrian Autry. And Huggins was forced out at West Virginia this spring after a DUI arrest and offensive remarks he made on a radio show. Josh Eilert takes over the Mountaineers on an interim basis.
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5. When will Bronny James play at USC? LeBron’s oldest son suffered a cardiac arrest on July 24 during an offseason workout for the Trojans. The freshman guard was found to have a congenital heart defect, but the James family is hopeful he’ll play at some point this season. He always was going to draw an outsized amount of notice because of his name and because of LeBron’s longstanding goal of playing with his son in the NBA. But no one knows when or if Bronny might suit up in college.
6. High-profile players in new places: More than 1,100 players entered the portal in the offseason, and several star players swapped schools. They include Dickinson, the 7-2 former All-American who went from Michigan to Kansas; 2022 NCAA Tournament hero Caleb Love, who moved from UNC to Arizona; former national scoring leader Max Abmas (Oral Roberts to Texas); point guard Ryan Nembhard, who left Creighton to follow in his brother Andrew’s shoes at Gonzaga; and sharpshooting guard LJ Cryer, who took a cross-state transfer from Baylor to Houston.
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7. Kentucky is young again; Duke not so much: John Calipari largely had abandoned his one-and-done recruiting strategy the past two years while opting for veteran transfers. He has gone back to his Kentucky roots this year by relying heavily on the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, led by Justin Edwards and DJ Wagner. Duke had built much of its success in Mike Krzyzewski’s final years on freshman-laden rosters. The Blue Devils do welcome the No. 2 recruiting class, but four starters are back from last season, including sophomores Kyle Filipowski and Tyrese Proctor.
8. Can Purdue pull a Virginia? The Boilermakers became just the second No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed when Fairleigh Dickinson pulled the upset in March. The other team to suffer that ignominy was Virginia in 2018 — and the Cavaliers followed that up by winning the 2019 national title. Can Edey and the Boilers author the same revenge tale? They are ranked No. 1 in the preseason at KenPom (and No. 3 by AP), but no amount of regular-season success will win over skeptics until this program — which last went to a Final Four in 1980 — goes deep in the bracket.
There are still 146 days until Selection Sunday. The regular season begins in a fortnight. Enjoy the ride.
(Photo of tipoff of the 2022 NCAA Tournament championship game: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)