15 Bold Predictions for the 1st Month of the 2016-17 College Basketball Season

The home stretch of college basketball's more than seven-month-long offseason is finally here, and we're ringing in the final few weeks of the break with 15 bold predictions for the first month of the 2016-17 season.

It may seem like we're just throwing crazy garbage on a bunch of slides, but there's a fine line to balance when making bold predictions. The outcome that we forecast has to be feasible, but it can't be the obvious choice.

Let's use the Maui Invitational as an example. Picking North Carolina to win wouldn't exactly be going out on a limb, while picking Chaminade to beat three consecutive major-conference opponents would be downright foolish. Neither one is a bold prediction.

However, forecasting Connecticut to win the Maui title is the perfect combination of unlikely and plausible, thus, it's one of our 15 bold predictions.

Back in April, we made 10 bold predictions for the offseason and nailed half of them. If we can assume a similar batting average in this round, seven or eight of these should come true.

Did we mention these are bold predictions?

I've been on the record for several months as someone who thinks the Blue Devils could go 40-0 this season, so this is not something I think should or will happen.

But it could.

Within the first 30 days, Duke plays neutral-court games against Kansas, Florida, UNLV, Penn State and either Cincinnati or Rhode Island. They also have home games against Michigan State and a Grand Canyon team that is feistier than you probably realize.

The potentially unanimous No. 1 team in the nation should be able to win each of those games, but let's assign some percentages of confidence to them. We'll go ahead and say 99 percent chance of beating Grand Canyon, 98 percent against a rebuilding UNLV, 95 percent for Penn State, 90 percent for Florida, 87 percent for either Cincinnati or Rhode Island, 75 percent for Michigan State and 60 percent for Kansas.

Multiply those numbers together, and there's about a 33 percent chance the Blue Devils survive into mid-December with an undefeated record. Though Duke is clearly the favorite to win the title this year, that feels about right, considering only two of the past five teams to open the season ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25 made it 30 days without a loss—Kentucky in 2014 and Indiana in 2012.

The other three teams—North Carolina in 2015 and 2011; Kentucky in 2013—each lost twice in the first month of the season, though. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Kansas is fed up with hearing about how great the Dukies are going to be. (If nothing else, their fans will be perturbed that we're giving the Blue Devils a 60 percent chance of beating the Jayhawks.) They'll be bringing their A-game for that Champions Classic showdown in hopes of doing to Duke what Michigan State did to Kansas last November.

There might be a couple of NBA scouts in attendance for this year's Champions Classic.

Between Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan State, Scout's No. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 24, 27 and 30 recruits in the 2016 class will be in action. In total, those four teams signed 16 of the top 50 freshmen in the country.

Suffice it to say, there are a lot of players who might become the top-scoring freshman on Nov. 15 at Madison Square Garden. Of the bunch, the obvious candidates are Kansas' Josh Jackson, Duke's Jayson Tatum, Michigan State's Miles Bridges and Kentucky's De'Aaron Fox and Malik Monk.

However, we're rolling with a bit of a sleeper in Kentucky's Wenyen Gabriel.

Behind Fox, Monk, Bam Adebayo, Derek Willis, Isaiah Briscoe and Isaac Humphries, Gabriel will likely open the season at No. 7 in Kentucky's rotation. But as was the case with Alex Poythress for seemingly his entire four years in Lexington, Gabriel is the type of guy who is going to be completely unguardable once he puts it all together.

At 6'9" with three-point range and freakish athleticism, Michigan State has no answer for Gabriel. Gavin Schilling might be able to stifle Adebayo. Eron Harris and Tum Tum Nairn could theoretically slow down Fox and Monk every now and then. But if Bridges is unable to keep Gabriel under wraps, who on that team can?

The big unknown is playing time. Head coach John Calipari already has a veteran stretch 4 in Willis, which may limit Gabriel to just 15-20 minutes. We've got a hunch that he makes the most of his opportunity, though, and becomes this year's Kentucky freshman who makes a splash in the Champions Classic.

No, we're not predicting that Chaminade will upset North Carolina in the first round of the Maui Invitational, but give the Silverswords three chances against UNC, Oklahoma State and Tennessee, and they might be the team to fulfill this prophecy.

(There isn't even a major-conference team in the Great Alaska Shootout, so don't bother asking about Alaska-Anchorage.)

However, it's more than just those two tournaments where teams are putting themselves at risk for embarrassment against a non-D-I school. By our count, there are 12 instances in the first month of the 2016-17 season where a major-conference team toes that line:

Nov. 11: Rutgers vs. Molloy and TCU vs. St. Thomas
Nov. 12: Utah vs. Northwest Nazarene
Nov. 15: Utah vs. Concordia (Oregon), Illinois vs. McKendree, Nebraska vs. University of Mary and Washington State vs. Central Washington
Nov. 17: Maryland vs. St. Mary's College
Nov. 28: Oregon State vs. Southern Oregon
Nov. 30: Oregon vs. Western Oregon, Georgia vs. Morehouse and Oklahoma State vs. Rogers State

I won't even pretend to be an expert on D-II schools to know which ones pose the biggest threat. It's hard enough trying to keep track of 351 D-I schools. But based solely on the caliber of the D-I schools involved, we're circling Rutgers vs. Molloy and Washington State vs. Central Washington, right? Those might be the two worst major-conference teams in the country this year.

Also, what's up with Utah scheduling two of these games? Did the Utes not learn their lesson from 2013-14 when they blew out Evergreen State and St. Katherine by a combined margin of 157 points and didn't have nearly a good enough computer resume to make the tournament with a 21-11 record?

When projecting the standings for most of the major conferences, there's a clear point where we transition from Final Four contenders to a subset of teams that will make some noise without really challenging for the conference title. For example, in the Big Ten, you've got some combination of Indiana, Michigan State, Purdue and Wisconsin up top with Maryland, Michigan and Ohio State in that second tier of teams likely to receive NCAA tournament bids.

But in the SEC, it's Kentucky at No. 1, followed immediately by a ton of question marks. The conference should eventually get at least three teams into the Big Dance, but there's no telling which teams those will be. Florida and Texas A&M are the early candidates, however, neither one is likely to open the season ranked in the AP Top 25.

In other words, No. 2 in the SEC is completely up for grabs.

We like Vanderbilt's chances of staking an early claim to that title.

The Commodores have a nonconference slate full of teams that are good but beatable. Within the first month, they have neutral-court games against Marquette, Minnesota, Butler and either Arizona or Santa Clara, depending on how the Butler game goes. They also have early home games against Belmont, Norfolk State and Bucknell, each of which has finished .500 or better in at least five consecutive seasons.

Despite losing Wade Baldwin IV and Damian Jones to the NBA draft, this team has more than enough talent to win all of those games. If either Clevon Brown or Djery Baptiste can make at least a tiny splash in the frontcourt as freshmen, it's tough to find a glaring weakness on this roster aside from a general lack of household names.

Look for big man Luke Kornet to get out to a monster start to potentially propel Vanderbilt into the Top 25 before too long.

After a rough start to the season that included home losses to Western Illinois, Marquette and Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Bo Ryan abruptly retired during the postgame press conference of an otherwise nondescript Tuesday night game in mid-December against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

(Granted, it wasn't the most unforeseeable retirement in sports history. Ryan flirted with retirement during the offseason before deciding 2015-16 would be his final year. He just never made it to the 2016 portion of that declaration.)

We'll boldly predict that another coach follows in Ryan's footsteps this year.

The who, when and how are completely up in the air, but there are a few viable why scenarios.

Based on how things have been going in college athletics over the past few years, the most likely reason is some sort of scandal involving an older coach. SMU's Larry Brown survived the season but called it quits six months after the Mustangs were banned from 2016 postseason play. Some felt that the scandals at Louisville, North Carolina and Syracuse might spell the end for Rick Pitino, Roy Williams or Jim Boeheim. Eventually, something is going to pop up in the middle of the season, and a coach is going to just decide enough is enough and retire on the spot.

Health is the other big concern, and it isn't necessarily limited to the elder statesmen. Urban Meyer briefly retired from coaching football at the age of 46 due to health concerns. Cincinnati's Mick Cronin missed most of the 2014-15 hoops season at the age of 43 due to a medical condition. A coach would most likely just take a leave of absence rather than retiring, but you never know.

Or it could just be a situation where the coach suddenly realizes his heart isn't in it anymore and walks away.

Our money is on the first scenario, but they're all in play to force a retirement within the first 30 days.

We obsess over the 5-star recruits long before they even choose a school. We get acquainted with 4-star recruits at schools expected to reach the NCAA tournament. But the 3-star guys don't even make a blip on the national radar until one of them makes a huge splash for a surprise team.

It doesn't happen every year. Unless you want to include Jevon Carter or Daxter Miles Jr. putting up solid numbers for West Virginia in 2014-15, it's tough to even come up with a decent example from the past two seasons. But it's hard to forget Marcus Foster coming out of nowhere to keep Kansas State relevant for one more season while legitimately battling Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid for the honor of 2014 Big 12 Freshman of the Year.

It's about time for a similar surprise success story, and it's going to happen early.

If we could tell you who will or might fit the mold, they wouldn't be surprises, but we'll throw a few possible candidates your way just to enhance the boldness of this rather vague prediction.

Iowa State's Solomon Young should get a healthy dose of playing time in a frontcourt that was completely sucked dry by graduation. Similarly, Oklahoma's Kristian Doolittle should be a major factor as the Sooners attempt to replace more than three-fifths of last year's points scored. Or if you're looking for a non-Big 12 pick, Providence's Alpha Diallo may well be a starter as a 3-star freshman.

But if it's not one of those three guys, there's a whole sea of options to choose from. We'll just have to see who floats to the top of it.

This seems like something that should happen once a month or at least once a year, but there hasn't been a single 50-point game in college basketball since South Dakota State's Nate Wolters dropped 53 on IPFW on Feb. 7, 2013.

More than a dozen players have put up at least 45 points in a game in the past three seasons. Iona's A.J. English did it twice last year. But no one has been able to do better than 48 since Wolters.

Time to break that drought.

If you're looking for a player-specific prediction, Howard's James Daniel led the nation in scoring at 27.1 points per game last year and figures to be a strong candidate—even though he has yet to score 40 in a game in his career. Davidson's Jack Gibbs also has to be considered after eclipsing 40 three times last year.

But if you're looking for the team that it's going to happen to, feast your eyes on either The Citadel or Northwestern State. According to KenPom.com, both of those schools ranked in the bottom six in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency while also ranking in the top seven in adjusted tempo. In other words, they give up a lot of points.

There were six games last season in which a team scored at least 117 points. The Citadel and Northwestern State each played "defense" for two of those games, including the ludicrous 144-71 thumping that Butler handed The Citadel.

But would a team keep its star player in one of those games long enough to reach 50 points? In those four games against The Citadel and Northwestern State, the highest-scoring player was Butler's Kellen Dunham at just 24 points. Typically, the better team was able to rest its regulars long before the game ended.

Maybe we'll get lucky, though, and Mississippi State will let Quinndary Weatherspoon take 35 shots against Northwestern State on Nov. 28.

On its surface, this prediction probably seems tame enough. Monmouth was one of the best feel-good stories of the 2015-16 season—right up until it got screwed by the NCAA selection committee. The Hawks return all but one of last year's key players and should be one of the best minor-conference teams in the country.

They've never been ranked in the AP Top 25 before, but given just that information, it's not unreasonable to assume they could get there this year.

It's their early schedule that makes this quite possibly the boldest prediction of all.

Monmouth won't open the season ranked in the AP Top 25, and winning the home opener against Drexel isn't going to do anything to change that. But by the time the first in-season poll is released, Monmouth will have played road games against both South Carolina and Syracuse.

Including the one against Drexel, eight of Monmouth's 10 games in the first month of the season come against teams that finished last season ranked No. 188 or worse on KenPom. South Carolina (58) and Syracuse (27) are the two exceptions to that rule. The Hawks will need to win at least one—probably both—of those games in order to be ballot-worthy within the first 30 days.

Considering it's the only game of any concern for Syracuse in the first two weeks, it's beyond unlikely that the Hawks are going to catch the Orange napping. But they just might be good enough to win early games against one major-conference team replacing its entire frontcourt (South Carolina) and another replacing all three of its leading scorers (Syracuse).

Fans aren't the only ones who grow unrealistically optimistic during the offseason. Players also make lofty expectations that occasionally come crashing down in a hurry.

Two years ago, Alex Robinson was a key reserve for Texas A&M, saving his best for last by averaging 15.7 points, 5.7 assists and 4.3 rebounds over the final three games of his freshman season. Even though the Aggies went out and added graduate-transfer Anthony Collins, Robinson—and most CBB experts—likely thought he would remain a key reserve as a sophomore before fully sprouting as a junior.

Instead, he didn't even touch the court in the season opener and decided to transfer a few days later. (For what it's worth, the Aggies also lost freshman big man Elijah Davis less than a month later.)

There are cases like this all over the country. According to ESPN's Jeff Goodman, there were 55 winter semester transfers during the 2015-16 season. That means for the first six or so weeks of the regular season, an average of more than one player per day decided to take his chances elsewhere.

It's almost inevitable that a player will transfer after one team game. In fact, there will probably be at least half a dozen players who fit that description. The only question is whether any of them will be as nationally relevant as Robinson was.

Forced to choose one team to produce such a player, let's stay in the SEC and go with Mississippi State.

The Bulldogs have Quinndary Weatherspoon, I.J. Ready and Aric Holman returning, Xavian Stapleton (Louisiana Tech transfer) and Joe Strugg (redshirt freshman) joining the active roster after sitting out this past season and one of the deepest recruiting classes in the country. It's only a matter of time before at least one of those 12 players decides to go elsewhere. Moreover, Mississippi State has a five-day break between its first and second game, giving those players ample time to consider their options.

According to Sports-Reference.com, there have been 104 triple-doubles over the past six seasons. That boils down to around 17 per year and 3.5 per month.

But with the rule changes that led to significantly more scoring in 2015-16, there were 31 triple-doubles last year, including six within the first three weeks.

Matching last season's triple-double production for the first month might not seem like a bold prediction, but keep in mind that Kyle Collinsworth, Denzel Valentine, Kris Dunn and Ben Simmons are all gone, leaving us relatively devoid of obvious candidates.

In fact, of the 25 players who averaged at least 4.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game last season, 14 graduated, four declared for the draft, Kris Yanku is playing professionally overseas and Josh Brown is recovering from an Achilles injury.

However, that does leave Joseph Chartouny (Fordham), Donte Thomas (Arkansas State), Dominic Artis (UTEP), Diante Baldwin (UNC-Greensboro) and Tra-Deon Hollins (Nebraska-Omaha) as triple-double threats, even though most fans have likely never heard of most of those names.

Thomas had five games last season with at least seven points, assists and rebounds, including one triple-double. Artis had four games with at least an eight in each of those categories. And there's always the possibility that Hollins gets the job done with steals as one of his double-digit numbers, as he led the nation in that category last season.

Don't forget how incredible this year's crop of freshman point guards is, either. Dennis Smith Jr., Lonzo Ball, Markelle Fultz and De'Aaron Fox are all options to help add to this total.

We're going to find out in a hurry just how much of a 2017 Final Four candidate the Connecticut Huskies are. In addition to a neutral-court game against Syracuse and a road game against Ohio State, they'll also partake in the Maui Invitational, which is easily the most loaded early-season tournament this year.

North Carolina, Oregon and Wisconsin are all solid candidates to be ranked in the Top 10 of the preseason AP Top 25. Georgetown is arguably the third-best team in the top-heavy Big East. Oklahoma State could be headed for a bounce-back year with a healthy Jawun Evans and Phil Forte. And while Tennessee is likely destined for another rebuilding year, that's one heck of a seventh-best team in an eight-team tournament field.

Based on the bracket, North Carolina should be the favorite. In addition to drawing Chaminade in the opener, the Tar Heels get to avoid both Oregon and Wisconsin until the championship game. If you're picking against North Carolina, you're probably going with either the Badgers or the Ducks.

But sleep on Connecticut at your own risk. Led by seniors Rodney Purvis, Amida Brimah and (potential starting power forward) Kentan Facey, the Huskies have the necessary veteran experience to thrive early in the season. They're also overflowing with noteworthy additions, including VCU transfer Terry Larrier and stud freshman point guard Alterique Gilbert.

They'll open with a winnable game against Oklahoma State before a showdown with a North Carolina team that might be a bit fatigued in what will be its sixth game in the first 12 days of the regular season. Get by the Tar Heels, and they'll get either an Oregon or Wisconsin team that may be running on empty after battling each other.

Crazier things have happened in these neutral-site November tilts. No one expected Syracuse to win the 2015 Battle 4 Atlantis, nor Villanova to win the 2013 Battle 4 Atlantis.

With more than 130 teams committed to 24 non-exempt tournaments, they can't all be gems. Several of the fields are uninteresting from top to bottom, while others have an obvious favorite that stands out like a lighthouse in a dark sea of teams with little to no hope of reaching the NCAA tournament.

The Charleston Classic falls into the latter category, as Villanova's odds of winning the 2017 national championship are probably as good as the odds that even one of the other seven teams in this field gets invited to the dance.

If all goes according to plan, Villanova would win this one by rolling through Western Michigan, Wake Forest and Mississippi State—three teams that might combine to win 40 games.

But we're talking about a neutral-court environment for a team that is heavily dependent on the long ball. The Wildcats completely flipped the script by shooting 56-of-112 (50 percent) from three-point range in the NCAA tournament, but they shot 19-of-93 (20.4 percent) in three regular-season games at neutral sites, including the infamous 4-of-32 game against Oklahoma in Hawaii.

Villanova scored at least 72 points in 32 of 40 games last season, but it also had terrible shooting performances away from home against the likes of Georgetown, Georgia Tech, St. John's and Stanford. The Wildcats were able to win each of those games on the defensive end, but a team like Mississippi State or Boise State just might be able to bring enough offensive firepower to make them pay for a poor shooting night.

Once upon a time just a couple of years ago, the vast majority of the nation's top recruits committed to schools by the end of the national letter of intent early signing period in mid-November.

Thanks in part to Myles Turner, though, that's no longer the case. He waited until the end of April 2014 to commit to Texas for the 2014-15 season. It didn't hurt him one bit, as he ended up with a school that used him well before landing in the 2015 NBA draft lottery.

The following year, guys like Brandon Ingram, Jaylen Brown, Ivan Rabb, Malik Newman and Diamond Stone all waited until at least March to make up their minds. Save for Newman never quite making it work at Mississippi State, they each excelled.

Of the 29 5-star recruits in the 2017 class, 10 have already committed to a school, leaving 19 undecided. A handful of those players will announce their decisions between Nov. 9-16, but expect a lot to remain undecided as they wait to see what exactly the schools such as Kentucky, Duke and Arizona will have to offer for the 2017-18 season.

Moreover, expect the big men to be the dominoes that we're waiting to fall for months.

2016 was the year of elite point guards, but there are a ton of outstanding centers and power forwards in next year's class, including still-uncommitted Mohamed Bamba, Wendell Carter, Brandon McCoy, P.J. Washington, Jarred Vanderbilt, Billy Preston and Nick Richards. All seven should be closely monitoring Duke and Kentucky throughout the season to get a proper gauge on how many frontcourt openings there will be at those one-and-done programs.

Try as they might to predict the future, the Associated Press is only about 80 percent prophetic with its primary preseason rankings.

In five of the past six seasons, at least one team that opened the year ranked No. 10 or better in the AP Top 25 was unranked by Week 5. This past season, Wichita State fit that description. The year before that, Florida infamously went from preseason No. 7 to its first sub-.500 season in nearly two decades. And back in 2010-11, both No. 8 North Carolina and No. 9 Florida were unranked after one month.

Moreover, in several of those seasons, a second team dropped to No. 20 or worse. So even though eight of the 10 teams have consistently remained in the Top 12 through five weeks, there's no good reason to expect all 10 teams to still look strong after a quarter of the regular season.

Based on the recently updated Top 25 rankings by ESPN.com's Eamonn Brennan, this year's 10 candidates are Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, Villanova, Virginia, North Carolina, Oregon, Wisconsin, Xavier and Michigan State. Though Villanova did lose Omari Spellman for the season and Duke may or may not have Harry Giles, those top six seem like safe bets to remain title contenders throughout the year.

But we think Xavier is in the most danger.

Part of that is due to the sheer volume of production lost from last season. With Jalen Reynolds and James Farr gone, an awful lot of responsibility falls on Norfolk State transfer RaShid Gaston. The Musketeers also lost Remy Abell to graduation, and there's still no telling whether Myles Davis will be eligible to rejoin the roster. Trevon Bluiett and Edmond Sumner are great, but it's going to take more than that to remain a Top 10 team.

An equally big consideration is their schedule. Home games against Lehigh, Buffalo, North Dakota State, Northern Iowa and Utah are no joke, nor are the consecutive road games against Baylor and Colorado or the likely path of Missouri-Clemson-Oklahoma in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off Tire Pros Invitational. Xavier may well have the best nonconference RPI and strength of schedule in the country, but if it results in a few losses, it can at least temporarily kiss that high ranking goodbye.

Similar to but opposite from the previous slide, there's almost always at least one team that comes out of nowhere to climb into the AP Top 15 in one month's time.

By Week 5 last year, Xavier (No. 12), West Virginia (No. 14) and Providence (No. 15) all ranked in the Top 15 after opening the season unranked. Three years prior to that, Illinois, Minnesota and Georgetown sat at Nos. 13-15, respectively, after getting no preseason love.

If we also count the teams that got into the Top 15 after starting at No. 25—considering the difference between No. 25 and unranked in the preseason is usually less than 10 votes—there has been an average of two teams over the past six seasons that went from either No. 25 or unranked into the Top 15 for Week 5.

Using Brennan's updated Top 25 as a guide again, there are a few teams that stand out as strong candidates for this type of meteoric rise. Baylor, Butler, Clemson and Georgetown all missed Brennan's Top 25, as well as his list of 12 other teams strongly considered for the list. Any one of those four teams could easily rank in the Top 15 by mid-December.

However, we're going with Princeton, because the Tigers are a strong, veteran team with a ton of early chances to make statements.

Save for one senior who ranked 14th on the roster in points scored, Princeton gets everyone from last year's 22-7 team back. The Tigers are even getting back in Hans Brase, who averaged better than 11.0 points per game as both a sophomore and junior before missing the 2015-16 season due to injury. The talent is definitely there.

And within their first six games, the Tigers will play at BYU, Lehigh and VCU, followed by a neutral-court game in Hawaii against California. As far as Brennan is concerned, none of those opponents will be ranked to open the season. But if Princeton can get to 6-0 against that slate, it should easily become the first Ivy League team ranked in the Top 20 since 1998.

Stats are courtesy of KenPom.com and Sports-Reference.com. Recruiting information is courtesy of Scout.com.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.