Off Season: Welcome Back!!

It certainly has been a while.  I fell behind on my picks, my posts and I know all of you have missed me... right??

It is now my favorite season of the year, it's baseball tiiiiime (in Pauly D's t-shirt time voice)!! I don't really bet baseball all that much (even though I'm in two fantasy baseball leagues and absolutely love the game) and it's probably because I'm a Reds fan (Pete Rose ruined it for me).  There will still be picks to be made every now and then, but it won't be as often as the NCAABB picks.  That being said, I think I'm going to change it up on this blog over the next couple of months.

How could I not start trying to preview the Indiana Hoosier basketball season already? How could this not be the first post of that series? Zeroes to heroes.  Unranked to a probable preseason #1 ranking.  No official rankings have been released yet, but there is no shortage of hype surrounding the 2012-13 Hoosier basketball team only a few short weeks after the season ended.  Yahoo! Sports, USA Today, ESPN.com and NBC Sports all have mock preseason rankings that have Indiana holding the number one spot.  Each one of them giving the caveat that they would hold that position assuming Junior F Christian Watford and Freshman F Cody Zeller returned to Bloomington.  And they did.

Watford was testing the NBA waters and some analysts and people close to his situation even said that he was 90% gone.  What changed his mind?  Maybe it was the fact that Chad Ford had him slatted as the 131st overall prospect and said that a high second round pick was his ceiling.  Or maybe he wanted to come back to be the leader on one of the nation's best teams.  You think that may help his draft stock for next year?

Zeller wasn't that much of a surprise.  During his announcement he said, "My college experience at IU this year has exceeded my expectations, on and off the court."  I think I can speak for any and all IU alumni, as well as, any of my friends that came to visit me while I was there.... DUH!!  Unfortunately, I think this is Zeller's last year.  He's already projected to be the #1 pick in the 2013 NBA draft.  But if he leaves with a B10 POY, National POY, a B10 Championship and a National Championship what else would there be to accomplish in college?  Yea, yea, I'm getting waaaaaay ahead of myself, but if you want to talk about odds; the Hoosiers will be favored to win the titles and Zeller will be favored to take home the hardware. Statistics are currently on my side.

Basketball season is over, but there is so much to cover over the next several months for Hoosier fans.  Returning all five starters + a new and improved #benchmob + a top 10 recruiting class.  It may technically be baseball season, but the State of Indiana is going to be reminded that when the Hoosiers are relevant, it's always basketball season.

I can't think of a better way to end this post than to remind everyone that there are only 184 days to Hoosier Hysteria.

Blogger's Note:  My next post in the "Off Season" series is going to focus in on Indiana's scholarship situations and take a look at some possible scenarios on how things will work themselves out.  As it currently stands, the Hoosiers have 14 scholarship players which is one over the limit of 13.