Ranking the offseason's biggest winners and losers

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With the deadline for underclassmen to keep their names in the NBA Draft now passed, here are the offseason's biggest winners and losers in college hoops:

The Winners

1. Georgetown
Coach John Thompson III made an appearance at the NBA's Predraft Camp in early June to check on star forward Jeff Green, a physical-only invitee who was having second thoughts about entering the draft after his junior season, despite being a sure-fire lottery pick. Green's flirtation with returning -- and the Hoyas' shot at being a preseason No. 1 -- didn't pan out, but I remember Thompson having this casual exchange with an NBA scout outside the Milkhouse Gym:

Scout: "Congrats on getting Big Roy back, coach.

JTIII, grinning: "Thanks guys."

Scout: "That must have been some conversation."

JTIII: "Hey, he wanted to come back."

At that, the scout and his cohorts gave Thompson incredulous looks and laughed. They could not fathom the idea 7-foot center Roy Hibbert -- another likely lottery pick -- would pass up the draft for another year with the Hoyas. Yet that's exactly what had happened a few weeks earlier.

Big Roy's return was the biggest gift received by any team in the nation this offseason. Now that Greg Oden, Aaron Gray and Spencer Hawes are gone to the NBA, no one is left to challenge Hibbert's supremacy as the college game's most dominant true center. With sophomore forward Dajuan Summers ready for a breakout year, and two McDonald's All-American guards, Austin Freeman and Chris Wright, on the way in, the Hoyas have to be considered a part of the national championship picture for a second-consecutive season -- even if Green is gone.

2. Kentucky
No other program altered its momentum in the offseason like the Wildcats did. Athletic director Mitch Barnhart made the year's best hire by luring Billy Gillispie away from Texas A&M. Gillispie, in turn, lured two elite recruits, shooting guard Alex Legion and power forward Patrick Patterson, to UK. The Wildcats will be SEC contenders in Gillispie's first season, which should be the beginning of a long and prosperous new era in Lexington.

3. Marquette
The anti-Dominic James bandwagon was packed at the predraft camp where the Eagles' point guard put on a sub-par performance that would have led to him being either a late-second-round pick or going undrafted altogether. Scouts harped on what he couldn't do, namely shoot from the outside or run a team smoothly. Now, James is back at Marquette for his junior season, and it's time to accentuate the positive: Namely, that with him, Jerel McNeal and Wes Matthews Jr., the Eagles have one of the nation's best backcourts. James wanted to stay in the draft, but he's capable of leading the Eagles to a Big East title and a darkhorse run at the Final Four. That's not a terrible Plan B.