Among all the hubbub and commotion of pro sports that is going on right now--The World Series, mediation for the NBA Lockout, the NFL season happening--the first rankings for college basketball came out.
Yes, the best sport of them all is sending out the tell-tale signs that its start is closer than we realized. The first college basketball games of the season are actually less than 3 weeks away. As such, we have our rankings. The preseason rankings are rarely a surprise as far as where teams stack up are concerned. Most big college basketball fans know who next year's best teams will be once the day to declare for the NBA Draft has come and gone. Case in point: this year, fans of the schools waited with bated breath to see whether Kyrie Irving, Harrison Barnes and Jared Sullinger would put their names into the NBA draft. Irving did, but Barnes and Sullinger did not. As a result, North Carolina and Ohio State are viewed as top contenders for 2012's crown, and Duke is expected to be good as always, but a step below the country's best teams.
This college basketball season offers and especially exciting prospect, though. Due to the impending (at the time) NBA Lockout, many top college freshman (like Barnes, Sullinger, and UConn star Jeremy Lamb) stuck around for another year. Those guys can spout off about coming back to school because they wanted a championship all they want. Fact is, if not all, the vast majority of them would have bolted for greener pastures (see what I did there?), and justifiably so, if there had not been a lockout looming at the end of the season.
But I'm not complaining about any of that. It's exciting, because for the first time since the NBA disallowed players to enter the draft from high school, we have a chance to see what a couple classes of McDonald's All-Americans can do together. UNC is bringing basically everybody back from last year's team, and adding a couple Mickey D's All-stars in the process. Ohio State is more or less in the same circumstances. I don't like either team, and I can't help but be excited about the prospect. Meanwhile, Kentucky is bringing probably the best recruiting class ever. Their would-have-been sophomore stars Brandon Knight and Terence Jones will be playing pro, but the potential for this team makes your head spin if you think about it for too long.
These three teams, the fact that we are coming off an NCAA Tournament where two mid-major teams proved they were worth taking seriously, and the always tough Dukes, Syracuses, Connecticutts and Kansases of the world mean this is shaping up to be one of the great college basketball seasons of all time. It could be the last season of its kind for quite awhile, assuming the NBA ever solves its lockout (24 hours+ in a 32 span didn't do the trick, I've lost all faith in these guys). It can't get here soon enough. The basketball fan in me is getting restless. The 6-0 Packers and the NHL just aren't going to satiate me for much longer.
Bring on the madness.
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