It's still too early to take this season seriously, so I hope you'll take some time to glance backward and pick your all-time college team or your all-90s college team, etc.
-- David Machlowitz, Westfield, N.J.

THE 'BAG'S ALL 1990s COLLEGE BASKETBALL TEAM FIRST TEAM: Bobby Hurley Duke Tony Delk Kentucky Richard Hamilton Connecticut Christian Laettner Duke Larry Johnson UNLV SECOND TEAM: Miles Simon Arizona Grant Hill Duke Ed O'Bannon UCLA Corliss Williamson Arkansas Eric Montross North Carolina THIRD TEAM: Mike Bibby Arizona Mateen Cleaves Michigan State Raef LaFrentz Kansas Chris Webber Michigan Tim Duncan Wake Forest PLAYER OF THE DECADE: Christian Laettner, Duke. COACH OF THE DECADE: Mike Krzyzewski, Duke. HONORABLE MENTION TOP 10: Stacey Augmon, UNLV; Paul Pierce, Kansas; Marcus Camby, Massachusetts; Glenn Robinson, Purdue; Shaquille O'Neal, LSU; Chris Jackson, LSU; Elton Brand, Duke; Antawn Jamison, North Carolina; Alonzo Mourning, Georgetown; Billy Owens, Syracuse.

MAILBAG Grant Wahl will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

OK, I'll bite. At right, I've listed the 25 players that make up my All-1990s Team, classified into first, second and third teams and honorable mention. First, some points about the selection process:

• I've tried to keep an even balance of backcourt and frontcourt players in each team.
• Only a player's achievements from 1990 to 1999 qualify. (This gets tricky with Mateen Cleaves, who would have been higher than Third Team if his finest hour hadn't taken place in 2000.)
• Playing on a winning/championship team matters. (The top-10 players all won national titles. Note, too, that while Tony Delk wasn't one of the five best players of the decade, he was the best player on one of the decade's transcendent teams, the 1995-96 Kentucky Wildcats. And since it's my list, I can put him on the First Team.)
• Team and individual success during the regular season counts too. (It's why two-time AP All-America Raef LaFrentz edges out two-time All-America Shaquille O'Neal for a Third Team spot. Neither player reached a Final Four, but LaFrentz's 1996-97 Kansas Jayhawks were better than any of O'Neal's LSU teams.)
• A player's NBA accomplishments (or lack thereof), as always, don't count.

Now fire away! (And feel free to suggest any other exercises like this, too.)

Since four of the five teams on the cover of the Big is Back issue lost last week, do you find it safe to say the SI jinx is real?
-- Chris Johnson, New York City

Nope. I find it safe to say that we're seeing more upsets than usual in the early part of the college hoops season. It's fashionable to say these losses don't mean anything -- and I suppose they don't in the big scheme of things -- but it should mean more teams from non-BCS conferences are establishing bona fides that could put them in contention for at-large berths once March rolls around. (Still, Kansas' win over Florida -- a tremendously fun game to watch -- will get some people off SI's back for picking the Jayhawks No. 1 to start the season. Funny, I got all sorts of e-mails when Kansas lost to Oral Roberts but none after Bill Self's group beat Florida.)

Why is being a good free-throw shooter a lost art these days? Once upon a time, it seemed as though the best players (and teams) were also the best free-throw shooters . Is it because coaches aren't devoting enough practice time to the skill? Is it because players don't perceive it as important enough to dedicate themselves to improving? Is it technique? I remember my old high school coach saying, "You ought to be able to roll out of bed in the middle of the night and hit eight out of 10 free throws." What's the problem?
-- Kevin Awn, Dubai, U.A.E.

Guess what? Like a lot of things that are supposedly lost arts, the idea that free-throw shooting used to be a lot better is a myth. Last season Division I teams shot 69.1 percent from the line. In the previous 25 seasons that number was higher only once (in 2002-03, when teams shot 69.4 percent). The high-water mark for free-throw shooting was 1978-79 (69.7 percent), but in the "good old days" teams shot far worse from the line than they do today. From the season the NCAA started keeping track in 1947-48 (a miserable 59.8 percent) to 1974-75 (69.0 percent), free-throw shooting was better than it was last season only once (69.2 percent in 1965-66). Contrary to what you might think, the men also shot free throws better than Division I women's teams did last season (68.55 percent).