Looking back, looking ahead

Dominant UConn closed out thrilling season, but ACC will be fierce in '05

Emeka Okafor led UConn to its second national title in the past six seasons. Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

SAN ANTONIO -- If the 2003-04 college basketball season taught us anything, it was that reports of the sport's impending demise were greatly exaggerated.

Amidst all of the recent grumbling about depleted talent levels, unethical coaches and sloppy play, Connecticut, Georgia Tech, Duke and Oklahoma State gave us one of the most memorable Final Four Saturdays in recent memory. St. Joe's gave us a team worth cheering. Emeka Okafor and Jameer Nelson gave us two players worthy of universal appreciation.

The cynics said the NBA's ongoing amateur talent purge would irreparably harm college basketball. Instead, it may be the other way around. Diehard basketball fans, fed up with the increasingly selfish style of play exhibited by the pros, came back to the college game in droves this tournament, enamored with a Connecticut team that mixed glitz with gruffness, invigorated by a Georgia Tech team that actually emphasizes the pass.

In an era of declining TV ratings for all sports, CBS' audience for Saturday's Final Four games was up more than 30 percent from last year. All those casual fans that wouldn't know Jarrett Jack from Jack Black must have found something worth watching.

"In the NBA, it used to be the Knicks vs. the Bullets; the Bucks vs. the Celtics. Now it's Shaq vs. Yao Ming. What's that? That's not basketball, that's tennis," Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt said. "We're an old-fashioned team. We share the ball. We don't have one guy that we live and die with."

Connecticut didn't have that one guy, either. It had two. But the Huskies did not emerge from the pack solely on Okafor and Ben Gordon alone. They had all the classic traits of a champion: the two marquee stars, a heady point guard (Taliek Brown), a viable third option (Rashad Anderson) and a host of players (Josh Boone, Denham Brown, etc.) that knew their roles. Most refreshing, however, for basketball purists was their unselfishness and dedication to defense.

"Sometimes you're blessed with teams that are incredibly talented, but there's chaos," UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. "But sometimes you're blessed, as I have been this year, to have kids who think the same way you do."

The Huskies were the exception to one rule that guides much of the national landscape these days: parity. Sure, two familiar faces, UConn and Duke, reappeared at the Final Four. But elsewhere, Georgia Tech went from the NIT to the national title game in the course of an offseason; Xavier went from 10-9 to the Elite Eight in two months; Air Force went from longtime cellar-dweller to tournament team; and a batch of new faces -- Nevada, UAB, Alabama, Vanderbilt -- reached the Sweet 16 while stalwarts such as UCLA, Indiana and St. John's failed to reach the postseason.

Don't expect the sport's increasingly volatile landscape to stop changing anytime soon. Here are a few college basketball questions worth pondering for next season:

Can Connecticut reload?

Within two years of winning his first national title in 1999, Calhoun was back at square one. He then built a new team that would go from the NIT in 2001 to its second national title three years later. Despite the expected loss of Okafor and Gordon in addition to graduating point guard Brown, this bunch shouldn't endure nearly as big a drop-off, with Anderson, Boone, Brown and Charlie Villanueva poised to assume starring roles, and touted point guard Marcus Williams, Georgia Tech transfer Ed Nelson and McDonald's All-American Rudy Gay joining the fold.

Is Duke's reign atop the ACC in jeopardy?

Mike Krzyzewski has enjoyed unprecedented domination the past seven seasons, but the Blue Devils suddenly are facing threats from every direction. Hewitt's Yellow Jackets will return nearly everyone, as will Wake Forest, which reached the Sweet 16, and Maryland, which ended the Devils' five-year run of ACC tournament titles. And then there's Roy Williams, headed into his second season at UNC. Duke also returns its core, but Chris Duhon is graduating, and there are questions whether a team led by J.J. Redick and Shelden Williams can win a championship. Much will depend on whether freshman Luol Deng and signee Shaun Livingston pass up NBA riches as almost-certain lottery picks.

Can St. John's be saved?

Now into its fifth month without a permanent head coach, the once-proud program is at rock bottom, freshly removed from an embarrassing 6-21 season. The many felt was the logical next coach, Manhattan's Bobby Gonzalez, likely is headed to Miami. Former Notre Dame and North Carolina coach Matt Doherty interviewed last week. Providence's Tim Welsh is high on the committee's list, though it's questionable why he'd leave the Friars. Whoever gets the job will have a gargantuan task on his hands. The Red Storm has slipped to the bottom of the Big East, and that's before the 2005 addition of Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette and DePaul. However, there's no shortage of New York City talent ready to be mined.

Will the Big Ten and Pac-10 recover?

This was not a banner year for the two proud conferences, which sent just three teams each to the NCAAs, only one of which (Illinois) reached the Sweet 16. Of the two, the Big Ten has the brighter prospects. The Illini return stars Dee Brown and Deron Williams; Devin Harris may return to Wisconsin; Michigan State has too much talent to be mediocre again; and Indiana is bringing in four top 50 recruits (not including likely NBA Draft entrant Josh Smith). As for the West Coast, Stanford's early tourney exit does not bode well for its future, and Arizona was a huge disappointment. The Wildcats could still make a move next season if Salim Stoudamire and Channing Frye both return, but the young teams to keep an eye on are Washington, Cal and UCLA.

Is Texas ready to take the next step?

Don't look now, but Rick Barnes' Longhorns have been to three straight Sweet 16s, including the 2003 Final Four, and he's only getting started. This fall Barnes welcomes his own "Fab Five" recruiting class, including McDonald's All-Americans LaMarcus Aldridge, Daniel Gibson and Mike Williams. The loss of four key seniors, however -- Brandon Mouton, Royal Ivey, Brian Boddicker and James Thomas -- could make it difficult in the Big 12 next season, where Kansas returns nearly its entire roster, Oklahoma State brings back John Lucas III, and young Oklahoma should be much improved.

Who will be the favorites?

It's impossible to say without knowing which recruits and underclassmen will enter the draft, which coaches will still change jobs and which disgruntled players will transfer, but here's one early stab at a top 10 for 2004-05:

Stewart Mandel covers college sports for SI.com.