The Hurricanes were one of the best stories in college basketball this year. When Frank Haith left to take the Missouri job, the Canes had never once had a winning record in the ACC. Two years later and Miami just went 13-5 in the conference regular season, and then swept through the tourney for their first ACC Title.

In the NCAA Tournament, they ran into Marquette who may have played their best game of the season.

Now it's time to look ahead to next year.

The Canes had six seniors on this year's team. One - Garrius Adams - missed the year with a knee injury and should be back next season. They also had a freshman (Bishop Daniels) leave the program after playing just three games.

Daniels wasn't a big cog at all, but the five seniors were. Miami had four players play more than 1,000 minutes, and three were seniors. Just two of the top seven (in terms of minutes) are not graduating.

All told - and this assumes that Shane Larkin returns - the Hurricanes lose 64% of their minutes. Where does that leave them?

In the past two years only 2011 Boston College and 2012 North Carolina returned that few minutes in a season in the ACC. Which one is a better model for Miami?

If you're a Gator then by all means you should be rooting against Cinderella - after all, it's the Gators who are Florida Gulf Coast's next opponent. But the Fox affiliate in Florida rooting against the most popular story in Ameica? WTF? That's so the John Stewart version of Fox.

With #Canes bounced, looking forward to watching the best college basketball program in #Florida make their 3rd straight Elite 8... #Gators

— FOX Sports Florida (@SunSportsFOXFL) March 29, 2013

Mid-majors are the new Billy Beane. Sure, Beane hasn't actually won anything as the GM of the Oakland Athletics, but he has books and movies made about how he's changed the landscape - which, he has. Mid-majors have changed the basketball landscape as well, but they certainly haven't won anything. It's been since 1990 that a team outside of a current BCS conference has won it all (UNLV), and if you classify the Rebels as a "mid-major" then I think you might need to re-evaluate your definition. The last true mid-major to win it all was what - Marquette in 1977? Don Haskin's UTEP squad in 1966?

More importantly, modern basketball has been dominated by the big boys. And by that, I'm excluding what is without a doubt the best conference in college hoops - the Big Ten.

If you examine the rosters of NCAA Tournament champions they have a couple things in common. One, they're filled with elite recruits. Two, they have multiple players who end up as 1st round picks in the NBA. Those two things are not always interchangeable. Not every elite recruit pans out. Not all 1st round picks were elite recruits. But it's pretty darn close. Evaluating talent in basketball is easier than it is in other major sports. You could watch Michael Kidd-Gilchrist in high school (then, Michael Gilchrist) and see an NBA player. It's hard to look at a high school quarterback and see anything more than NFL potential.

This is the reason why I track where elite talent ends up. Those schools win titles.

For a data source I use RSCI Hoops, which, if you aren't familiar with this site, you should be. They take ESPN, Rivals, Scout, etc... rankings and combine them into one consensus ranking. There's no need to argue about which service is better, because the power of crowd sourcing wins out. In the end, defer to RSCI.

Starting with the consensus top 100 players:

When Florida Gulf Coast entered Division-I play in men's basketball at the start of the 2007-2008 season, no one could have predicted where the Eagles are today. But four other programs moved to D-I that year, and seven other programs have made the move since then.

How do they stack up to FGCU's wanton success? I ranked them all, 1-12.

From Hoopmixtape.com

When: 7:47 EST, TBS

Where: Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA

How they got here: 6-seed Arizona hasn't really been tested yet, but they also haven't faced a single-digit seed. With Wichita State and La Salle squaring off on the other side of the bracket, it's conceivable that Arizona could get to the Final Four by beating one team seeded higher than 11th. Regardless, they beat Belmont (11) by 17-points and Harvard (14) by 23, and all they can do is play the teams put in front of them.

2-seed Ohio State, like their opponent Arizona, has also yet to play a single digit seed. They blasted Iona (15) in the first round by 25, but then needed an Aaron Craft 3-pointer at the buzzer to avoid overtime vs Iowa State (10) in a game that will otherwise largely be remembered due to a late blown call by Karl Hess.

Key Matchups

The possession battle

The Buckeyes offense starts with ball control. They are 11th in the nation in TO%, and Arizona doesn't do a great job forcing turnovers (173rd). This, on the surface, could mean that Ohio State will get more effective possessions (a possession that does not end with a turnover) than Arizona, but the Wildcats make up for it by not allowing offensive rebounds. They are the 13th best defensive rebounding team in the nation, while Ohio State is average getting after the offensive glass.

For those who might be French and prefer their options a-la-carte, please choose from the menu below. Or, be an American and just follow the damn list. Also, I know I forgot some good folks, so feel free to email me, or put it in the comments if you've been overlooked. You know who you are.

Also, while I appreciate the national and regional folks, this list is about the specialists who mostly obsess about a single team. That's where the real insight comes from.

Arizona

AZ Desert Swarm, Your @SBNation Arizona Wildcats blog. Tweets by @offensivelyfoul and @kensing45 #BearDown

Bruce Pascoe, Covering Arizona basketball, and assorted other topics, for the Arizona Daily Star

Duke

Adam Rowe, Duke sports on the reg. Especially Duke Basketball & Football. @CLykinsBlog, @R_Horn21, @WayneBumpass, @tscotty99 & @Bleed_DukeBlue1 contributors

Ben Swain, Co-host of the critically acclaimed Walk-Ons podcast (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-walk-ons-podcast/id605154975?mt=2 …). Writer. Joke maker. 2012 Belk Bowl attendee. ACC xenophobe.

Blue vs Blue, Two teams. Eight miles apart. 100+ years of history. One blog. Let's do this.

Duke Basketball, Coverage of Duke Basketball from The Chronicle, Duke's independent daily student newspaper.

Duke Blogger, The Blogging of Duke Blue Devil Basketball

Yesterday, Tubby Smith was fired. And predictably the fan reaction was almost overwhelmingly positive. And it will stay that way, for now.

Start googling "Tubby Smith fired" and you'll find an awful lot of pictures of Shaka Smart. Smart, of course, is closely linked to the Minnesota Athletic Director, and hey, what fan base wouldn't want Smart? Never mind that he's previously turned down far better jobs than Minnesota, or that he's currently linked to UCLA, which might be one of the top four or five jobs in the nation.

It gets more complex the more fan reactions you read. Brad Stevens? Why not?! What about Anthony Grant or Buzz Williams? Meh, let's go higher profile.

And herein lies the problem.

You may have heard of Florida Gulf Coast University. I haven't looked at Google, though I'm guessing that several variations on their name is pretty large in keyword searches the past few days. So it's only natural - this is 2013 after all - that fake Twitter comes a knocking.

And sure enough, the FGCU Eagles basketball team just got an "official" Twitter account. Nevermind that they already have an official Twitter account (which you should follow, by the way).

Most of the time this would just be a case of some lonely kid wanting a voice and latching on to whatever is popular so that people will give him attention.

But again, this is 2013. And 2013 is all about socks.