ESPN's Basketball Marathon

The Tar Heels will almost certainly start the season as the number one ranked team in the nation. Roy Williams' squad got Wooden Award-winner Tyler Hansbrough, along with point guard Ty Lawson, wingman Wayne Ellington and sixth man Danny Green back for one more year -- and added one of the nation's top recruiting classes -- anything less than a return to the Final Four will be a disappointment in Chapel Hill. Meanwhile, the Wildcats tip off year two of the Billy Gillespie era, and will be building around Patrick Patterson -- the highly promising soph whose 2007-08 season was cut short by a knee injury.

Sure, the Jayhawks lost a lot of key players from last year's championship team -- I still don't think they'll have much trouble dispatching the FGCU Eagles. Flip over to this game if you're desperate to see Kansas newcomers like the Morris twins, Marcus and Markieff -- but don't expect a nail-biter.

If the bracket plays out as expected, this should be the best matchup of the night, pitting one of the best post players in the nation -- Oklahoma's sophomore Blake Griffin -- against one of the best shooters, Davidson's Stephen Curry. But Oklahoma will be a tough matchup for Curry and the Wildcats -- the Sooners have a number of quick and athletic guards who will chase Curry all over the court. In the opening games in this region, Davidson faces James Madison while OU plays Mississippi Valley State.

This game could be a real high-scoring affair, featuring two players many expected would be in the NBA by now: Arizona's Chase Budinger and UAB's Robert Vaden. This assumes that Arizona can knock off Florida Atlantic and UAB beats Santa Clara.