Final Opening Week Previews

It's less than 30 hours until Houston and Georgia Southern open up the college basketball season. And with that in mind, it's time to finish my opening week previews with games I'm looking forward to next Sunday, the 16th:

Bradley at #19 Florida (ESPNU, 2PM ET): This will be Florida's second game, and Bradley's first game of the peculiarly bracketed CBE Classic. It seems as if the CBE Classic just has a bunch of early round games, and then automatically takes the top four teams the final regardless of results. So Bradley probably can't make it to the final rounds of this tournament, but they probably won't care if they can pull the upset here. I talked here about the season openers for both Bradley and Florida. What is clear is that these teams have two different goals here. For Bradley, this will be one of their only chances all year to put a Top 25 win on their resume. For Florida, they're going to still be feeling their way with a young team. To be sure, this would be a great early season win for Florida. But a loss would be more of a learning experience than anything else. It's not like they are going to play themselves out of the Tournament. It's clear that this game means a whole lot more to Bradley, and they should be fired up and playing well. But I don't think that will be enough to overcome the talent gap. I'm projecting Florida as a Top Ten team, and I'm picking them to win a close one here.

Old Dominion at Charlotte (6PM ET): The opening week is full of two types of games that anybody other than fans of each specific team will care about. One type of game is the elite team working kinks against an inferior opponent. The other type of game is two teams hoping to work their way into the at-large picture. This game here is obviously the latter. Both Charlotte and Old Dominion are going to be good teams in conferences hoping to earn multiple Tournament bids. Neither team is projected by anybody to win their respective conference, but both should be within shouting distance. And this game will be an important stepping stone for both teams. One team will leave this game feeling good, and the other is going to already have a little hill to climb. My prediction would be Charlotte here, because they're more experienced (Old Dominion will be heavily dependent on freshmen and sophomores this year), and they just have slightly more talent. Of course, Charlotte also needs this game more since they're more likely to be in an at-large battle late in the season. There is a decent chance of the CAA just being a one-bid league, in which case Old Dominion's out-of-conference resume won't be all that important in the end.

UMKC at #23 Kansas (ESPNU, 8:30PM ET): The season opener for the defending National Champions will be here, at the CBS Classic. I encourage everybody to watch this game, if only to learn who all of those new players in the Kansas uniforms are. Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush, Darrell Arthur, Sasha Kaun, Darnell Jackson, Russell Robinson, and Rodrick Stewart. Those seven players were seven of the eight players to earn double-digit minutes per game last season for the Jayhawks. And all seven are gone. The top returner is Sherron Collins, the lone double-digit minute earner to return, who was good for 9 ppg and 3 apg last season. He will be expected to lead this team, even though the most important returner might actually be 6'11" Cole Adrich, who played 8.3 minutes per game last year, but was actually pretty efficient while he was out there (2.8 ppg on 52% shooting, along with 3 rpg and 1 bpg). There are a lot of good big men in the Big 12, and Aldrich will probably be the only regular player on the roster taller than 6'9" (senior Mark Kleinmann is 6'10", but he only earned 43 minutes on the court all of last season). Aldrich will have some help on the inside with three good incoming recruits who all played power forward at New Jersey high schools last year: Quintrell Thomas, Marcus Morris and Markieff Morris (that's not a typo, the latter two are twins). Thomas and Marcus Morris are a little bit small for to play power forward in the Big 12, but Markieff Morris is 6'9" and should be an important player on the inside when Aldrich is getting rest. One other player to look for is Juco transfer Mario Little, who could end up being a key creator and swing man. There are a lot of questions with this Kansas team, but they are oozing with talent. Even though this particular game will be a blowout, we should get a decent sense of which players will lead Kansas this season.