60-eight predictions by typing a new College pyöränrenkaat,-wheels-season

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College basketball season tips off Monday night when Big East favorite Pittsburgh hosts Rhode Island in the opening game of the 2010 2K Sports Classic. To celebrate the end of the offseason, here are 64 65 ... wait ... 68 fearless predictions for the new season, all in 140 characters or less.

1. Purdue will win one more NCAA tourney game than it should on sheer grit. It will not, however, make a Final Four without Robbie Hummel.

2. Whether he's declared eligible or he sits out the entire season, freshman Enes Kanter will be Kentucky's most popular player this season.

3. Duke haters, avert your eyes. If freshman Kyrie Irving is as good as advertised, the defending champs will be better than a year ago.

4. Georgia fans will stop debating Mark Richt's future in February just long enough to wonder, "Hey, when did we get good at basketball?"

5. Auburn, LSU and Alabama fans, on the other hand, will continue to view March as the month when spring football practice begins.

6. Of the five blue bloods of the sport who missed the NCAA tournament last season, only UConn and Indiana again will fall short.

7. Improving Colorado State and Utah will steal enough wins from the Mountain West's big four to keep one out of the NCAA tourney. 

8. A beefed-up schedule and the return of Malcolm Delaney and Dorenzo Hudson will ensure Va. Tech has a rare stress-free Selection Sunday.

9. Oregon football has exceeded 50 points all but twice in Pac-10 play. Oregon basketball would be lucky to say the same by March.

10. The Big Ten will be the nation's strongest conference. Name another league in which more than half the teams are NCAA tourney locks.

11. St. John's and Rutgers made big recruiting splashes recently, but Seton Hall will be the New York area's lone NCAA tourney-bound Big East team.

12. Signing Ryan Harrow, C.J. Leslie & Lorenzo Brown saved Sidney Lowe's job last spring. The trio will do it again with an NCAA berth this year.

13. A coach who won't make it? Doc Sadler. Nebraska will struggle this season and opt for a fresh start before entering the Big Ten in 2011.

14. No 20-loss team in the nation will have a head coach more beloved than Iowa State's Fred "The Mayor" Hoiberg.

15. As early losses mount against the likes of Kansas State, Illinois and Baylor, Gonzaga will face questions about whether it over-scheduled. 

16. Thousands of college hoops fans will discover what channel Tru-TV is when they learn it will be airing first-round NCAA tournament games.

17. Isiah Thomas' repeated public overtures to the Knicks will hamper his recruiting efforts. Florida International still won't fire him.

18. Someone will make ex-Saint Mary's star Omar Samhan a studio analyst for the NCAA tournament. He'll instantly be better than Hubert Davis. 

19. If Missouri makes the second weekend of the tournament, the ebullient Kim English will become a breakout star the way Samhan was last year.

20. No matter how bad UCLA's man-to-man defense is early in the season, Ben Howland will not revert to zone the way he did last year. 

21. Months after collapsing following an on-campus workout, Seton Hall's Herb Pope will sweep every national comeback player of the year award.

22. By March, you'll see why UCLA's Tyler Honeycutt is a likely first-round pick. You'll still be perplexed by Minnesota's Rodney Williams though.

23. Oregon State may not win its Nov. 17 game at Seattle University, but this year the Beavers will come closer than 51 points.

24. If the NCAA rules freshman guard Josh Selby eligible, Kansas will win at least a share of the Big 12 title for the seventh year in a row. 

25. If Selby sits out the entire season, Kansas State will take advantage and claim the conference title.

26. Georgetown will overwhelm Utah State in D.C. on Dec. 4, prompting coach Stew Morrill to second-guess scheduling a rare road guarantee game.  

27. You'll see a lot of this face from Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury each time Renardo Sidney floats to the perimeter to take a jumper.

28. Wisconsin will be overlooked for most of the season yet find a way to finish in the top four in the Big Ten for the 10th straight season. 

29. Besides Duke, Michigan State will be the most popular Final Four pick for fans filling out their NCAA tournament brackets.

30. LeBron James will attend at least one Miami Hurricanes home game this season. Miami coach Frank Haith will reference it at least 75 times.

31. Only the most hardcore hoops fans will understand the format of the "First Four," but we'll all be thankful for a 68-team field instead of 96.

32. No matter what NCAA tourney seed Texas gets, you'll have no clue whether to pick them to make the Final Four or to lose in the first round.

33. The SEC East race will be one of college basketball's best. If Turkish freshman Enes Kanter is ruled eligible, Kentucky wins it. If not? Florida.

34. The bottom of the ACC will drag the rest of the league down. Virginia, Wake Forest, Boston College and Georgia Tech are weaker than usual.

35. The embarrassment from Rick Pitino's 15 seconds of shame with Karen Sypher will live on in chants and signs from Big East student sections.

36. Xavier will eke out an NCAA tournament bid but won't be a threat to play deep into March like usual. The dip will be temporary. 

37. The addition of sharp-shooting juco transfer Faisal Aden will help Washington State go from last in the Pac-10 to an NIT team at minimum.

38. After giving the rest of Conference USA a break last season, revamped Memphis will lose no more than one league game this year.

39. No other Conference USA team will manage to earn an NCAA tournament at-large bid, though Southern Miss and UTEP will contend.

40. Northwestern will field its deepest, most talented team in school history ... and still finish seventh in this year's stacked Big Ten.

41. Of the eight ESPN "College GameDay" games this season, Duke's visit to ACC title contender Virginia Tech will be the best atmosphere.  

42. Unless Cincinnati breaks its NCAA tournament drought in the fifth year of his tenure, coach Mick Cronin will not survive to see a sixth.

43. No matter who wins the national championship, CBS's Jim Nantz will punctuate the moment with one of his trademark cheesy, scripted lines.

44. Murray State and Morehead State will win at least 25 games apiece, yet only one of the OVC's two contenders will make the NCAA tournament.

45. Every coach in America will do the Dougie sometime this season. None, not even Jim Calhoun, will be worse than Arizona State's Herb Sendek.

46. A role player on last year's Big East champs, Kris Joseph will emerge as an all-league forward and lead Syracuse to another top-three finish.

47. Ex-Duke and Villanova forward Taylor King will finally put up the kind of numbers we expected but for the NAIA Concordia Eagles.

48. Mississippi Valley State coach Sean Woods will coax one win out of his team during its span of 13 straight road games to start the season.

49. If Fairfield emerges from a four-way race in the MAAC, the No. 4 or 5 seed that draws the Stags in the NCAA tournament will be very nervous.

50.The reunion of the Jordan brothers will generate plenty of publicity for Central Florida, though most will have little to do with basketball.

51. A jolt of athleticism from six newcomers will help Arizona State shed its slow-down stigma and contend for an NCAA tournament berth.

52. If BYU makes a deep NCAA tournament run, dozens of families in Utah will be tempted to name their newborn sons "Jimmer."

53. South Alabama's AD's attempt to get rid of its "USA, South in Your Mouth" chant will backfire as students will rally around the tradition.  

54. Pittsburgh will win almost 30 games and a Big East title yet finish on a sour note after falling a win or two shy of its first-ever Final Four. 

55. A non-league schedule full of mid-major landmines may hurt San Diego State's seed, but the Aztecs will win at least one NCAA tourney game.

56. Pepperdine again will finish in the lower half of the WCC, but high-flying guard Keion Bell will make SportsCenter's top 10 at least twice.

57. West Virginia forward Kevin Jones will make Wooden Award voters regret leaving him off the 50-man preseason watch list. 

58. ESPN analyst Dick Vitale's incessant praise for Duke will be insufferable as usual. The worst part? This year he'll be right.

59. Seven-foot-2 tuba player Andrew Del Piero will be a cult hero at LSU after leaving the marching band to walk onto the basketball team.

60. Arkansas won't fire coach John Pelphrey for missing the NCAA tournament again this season out of fear of losing the 2011 recruits he landed.

61. The transfer who will make the biggest impact will be Creighton's Gregory Echenique, who averaged 12.6 points and 7.7 boards at Rutgers.

62. Two other transfers sure to make an immediate splash when they become eligible in December: USC's Jio Fontan and New Mexico's Drew Gordon.

63. Talor Battle will be one of the Big Ten's top guards, but the senior won't carry Penn State to enough wins to save coach Ed DeChellis' job.

64. A more successful nonconference season will help a slightly improved Pac-10 get either three or four NCAA tournament berths this season.

65. If Tyler Zeller stays healthy (a big if), North Carolina will boast one of the nation's best frontcourts despite losing Ed Davis and the Wear twins. 

66. The preseason loss of Kwamain Mitchell and Willie Reed will prevent Saint Louis from contending for an NCAA tournament bid.

67. Like it did last season in the wake of Tyler Smith's dismissal, Tennessee will thrive despite the NCAA's investigation into Bruce Pearl. 

68. Harvard will take advantage of the graduation of Cornell's big three, out-dueling Princeton to win the Ivy League for the first time ever.

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