This is the season of worry in college basketball. Until June 16, the deadline for players to withdraw from the NBA draft, it's all about which fellas will allow their names to remain on the early entry list and which will not.
Sports are supposed to be a diversion, but sometimes you need a diversion from the diversion. So here are 10 reasons to be excited about the 2008-09 season. (Hey, it's only five months away!)
10. Jon Brockman is back to try one more time. He could have made it easy on himself by choosing Duke or UCLA, but Brockman pledged himself to Washington at a time when the Huskies were hot. Injuries and defections (Martell Webster without showing, Spencer Hawes after just one season) cooled the program, but Brockman has been a spectacular example of what a college player should be. Brockman will finish with better than 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. It will be nice if the end comes somewhere in the NCAAs.
9. Everyone will see Stephen Curry coming. It's hard to be anonymous after you've torn the tournament to shreds. That means there'll be increased pressure on Curry to deliver -- and increased attention designed to prevent that from happening. He'll miss the stellar set-up skills of point guard Jason Richards. But that also means Curry probably will have the ball in his hands more often with a chance to grow his game in a different direction. It will be thrilling to watch him continue to grow.
8. Gerald Henderson is going to blow up. Oh, no, here I go, writing something kind about Duke. Nobody but Duke fans seems to like when that happens. Sorry to say, Henderson has maybe the best physical tools of any returning college player: strength, length, dynamic athleticism. And late last season the other Devils began to recognize -- more important, Henderson began to recognize -- he was the best they had. Henderson needs to spend the summer working to improve his jump shot, but he can be great even without 3-point range.
7. The game will belong to vets. The dominance of freshmen in the first two seasons of the NBA's age minimum has gotten the bulk of the attention; that won't be true this year. There still will be capable freshmen this season, but there is no Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant or Greg Oden to revolutionize the game.
6. Bill Self no longer has to defend himself. He got Kansas a championship and coached one of the greatest NCAA comebacks ever. If the Jayhawks make the Elite Eight, this time there should be no griping.
5. Those who stayed. Whether it's Louisville's Earl Clark, Oklahoma's Blake Griffin, Connecticut's Hasheem Thabeet or Arizona State's James Harden, some credit should be given to those players who chose to pursue excellence rather than bend to agent pressure to sell their pro potential for pennies on the dollar.
4. UCLA can push for four in a row. Because the Bruins have made three consecutive Final Fours without winning a championship, there has been a small backlash against the achievement --assertions that this somehow represents an underachievement. Ridiculous. The only one of those seasons in which it can be argued the Bruins had the goods to win it all was 2008, but how could anyone dispute the notion that all four teams in San Antonio could say the same? If UCLA gets to the Final Four a fourth consecutive time, it would be only the fourth time in history that happened. Yeah, it'd feel better to leave with the trophy this time, but wouldn't it be a heck of a thing, either way?
3. The Big East will be unbelievable. The quality isn't there to suggest this will be the best conference in college basketball history -- but no league will have stood above the competition like the Big East is ready to do. We're talking about nine teams -- nine! -- that will be seriously debated as candidates for the preseason top 25. Don't believe me? Count 'em up: Connecticut, Georgetown, Louisville, Marquette, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Villanova, West Virginia. The winner of this league ought to get an automatic No. 1 seed.
2. A 3-pointer won't be a layup. The 3-point shot has been around since 1986, which is longer than most of the guys shooting them in Division I. And throughout its young life, the distance (19 feet, 9 inches) has been a joke. The late Skip Prosser once lamented to me, "It's the same distance junior-high girls shoot." Not anymore. Now Division I players will be awarded three points only if their shots connect from 20 feet, 9 inches -- a more legitimate test for shooters.
1. Tyler Hansbrough can go back-to-back. He could have turned pro and been selected in the first round after each of his first three seasons. Should he win a second straight Oscar Robertson Trophy, he'll join just six others who've done the same -- putting his name on a list that includes Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, Lew Alcindor, Pete Maravich, Bill Walton and Ralph Sampson. If Hansbrough makes first-team All-American, he'll be the first player ever to do that four years in a row.
Watching him try should be a blast.
