With just over two months separating the end of the 2008 College World Series and the start of the 2008 college football season college sports aren t out of the limelight for very long With that in mind we asked one of our experts to peer into his crystal ball during this down period and give us an idea of what might transpire in the upcoming season Among the many things he predicts is Duke falling short of the Final Four yet again college football predictions as well 1 When it s all said and done we ll once again be talking about two freshmen in contention for the No 1 pick in the 09 NBA Draft Ohio State center B J Mullens and USC shooting guard DeMar DeRozan aren t Oden and Durant but they should make a decent splash this season Athletic 7-footers like Mullens and powerful perimeter players like DeRozan are in higher demand than power forwards like Oklahoma s Blake Griffin who s currently projected in the top spot 2 The Big East will finally break through the eight-bid ceiling and send nine teams to the NCAAs The league is going to be that good 3 Marquette s Buzz Williams will have the lowest Q Rating of any coach fresh off the major-conference carousel but he ll also win more games than any of the others With what Williams is inheriting he d have to seriously botch things not to make the Sweet 16 4 Stephen Curry will still be a thrill to watch but Davidson won t be the top-20 team that some folks are expecting it to be To rank the Wildcats that high is to seriously underestimate the impact of losing Jason Richards perhaps the country s most underrated point guard last year 5 For the third-straight season quot This Year s George Mason quot will not exist 6 The final verdict on Detroit as a Final Four city will be Bad logo bad location A burning tire Really 7 Purdue will win its first of three straight Big Ten titles 8 Illinois coach Bruce Weber will get a couple of extremely satisfying wins over Indiana this year 9 This year s freshman class is a major step down from the last two but DeRozan will average more points as a USC rookie than O J Mayo did DeRozan is also far less likely to break his point guard s jaw in the preseason 10 USC will continue to plead ignorance about the Mayo scandal and the Trojans won t get in any real trouble from the NCAA 11 Be on the watch for a breakout from Texas A amp M s Bryan Davis Now that Joseph Jones has graduated and DeAndre Jordan has turned pro the burly Davis can finally be the Aggies main man in the post 12 UCLA s Darren Collison might give North Carolina s Tyler Hansbrough a nominal challenge for the Wooden and Naismith Awards but unlike last season there isn t going to be much of a debate 13 He sort of fell off the national radar for a year but we ll be talking about VCU s Eric Maynor again this season — as a possible first-rounder and the best mid-major guard not named Curry 14 Under-appreciated soph most ready to become a household name I James Harden Arizona State The big lefty was overshadowed in the Pac-10 by Kevin Love and O J Mayo but now he s the league s best returning scorer Harden was killing at LeBron s camp in Akron this week 15 Under-appreciated soph most ready to become a household name Part II DeJuan Blair Pitt Local boy was quietly a beast last year in a league full of quality big men He might be the best offensive rebounder in the country 16 One key draft-deadline decision that no one paid attention to Lee Cummard s return to BYU He should repeat as Mountain West Player of the Year and establish himself as one of the college game s best shooters 17 Chase Budinger will help his draft stock by going back to Arizona but his junior season won t be all that enjoyable without Brandon Jennings around Another drama-filled year in the middle of the Pac-10 pack for the Cats 18 Guy who has the chance to be an unsung senior hero Michigan State s Goran Suton He s a workhorse vet who will help usher the young-and-talented Spartans into the Post-Neitzel Era 19 If Jamont Gordon can get Raycom on his TV in Europe or some NBDL outpost he ll tune in and realize he could have made Mississippi State the champs of the SEC West but now no one in the entire league will really challenge Tennessee 20 Australia s next big contribution to the NCAA will be UConn freshman Ater Majok a 6-foot-10 forward whom the Huskies landed in the late signing period He could be dangerous in a front line with 7-3 Hasheem Thabeet and 6-7 Jeff Adrien 21 Duke will look statistically like a national-title contender and yet fall short of the Final Four once again 22 When the Milwaukee Bucks play their first road game at Conseco Fieldhouse assistant coach Kelvin Sampson will get heckled 23 Super-recruit Tyreke Evans isn t going to fit as perfectly into Memphis offense as Derrick Rose did That doesn t mean the Tigers won t win Conference USA it just means that Evans is likely to be far more interested in creating his own shots than Rose was 24 Wisconsin despite losing its lockdown defender Michael Flowers and the focal point of its offense Brian Butch will find a way to be ranked again When you defend as well as the Badgers do you don t need stars 25 North Carolina won t win the national ti– wait That would be the most fearless pick of all But I m not about to confuse fearlessness with stupidity