College basketball is back, as a quick check of Tuesday's schedule shows two games being played in College Park, Maryland, as the Coaches vs Cancer Classic tips off the 2006-07 college basketball season. Florida, last year's national champs, will begin this season No.1 in both the AP and Coaches' preseason polls.

Florida was unranked at the beginning of last season and finished the regular season as the AP's 11th-ranked team. However, the Gators won five of their six tournament games by 12 points or more (the exception was their 57-53 win over Georgetown), to become just the fourth team to capture the national championship, after beginning the season unranked. The three others to do so were, Texas Western in 1966 (now UTEP), Villanova in 1985 and Syracuse in 2003.

As most know, the Gators return all five starters from last year's championship team, just the second title team to do that in at least 40 years! Arizona won the title in the 1996-97 season and returned all five starters in 1997-98, but lost to Utah that year in the Regional Finals. North Carolina is No. 2 in both polls and Kansas comes in No. 3 in both polls as well.

As for last year's other three Final Four teams, UCLA (which lost to Florida in the championship game) is No. 6 in the AP and tied for fifth with Pitt in the Coaches' poll. LSU is No. 5 in the AP and No. 7 in the Coaches'. Last year's "Cinderella team," George Mason, got just one 25th-place vote in the AP poll and totaled just six points in the Coaches' poll, which places them 42nd.

Pitt's No.4 ranking in the AP poll, matches the school's highest-ever preseason ranking with the 1987-88 team. Ohio State, which most believe has the nation's best incoming freshman class (although Greg Oden will not be available until January, due to an injury), is No. 7 in the AP. Texas A&M is ranked No. 13 in the AP, the school's first appearance in that poll since November 30, 1980.

Duke opens the year at No. 12 in the AP poll, the school's 186th consecutive appearance in the poll. It's the longest active streak of any school and the second-longest streak of all-time. UCLA appeared in 221 straight AP polls from 1966 through 1980. U Conn (No. 18 in the AP's preseason poll), has the nation's second-longest active streak behind Duke, with 59 consecutive appearances. Kansas (No. 3) and Kentucky (No. 22), own the two longest active streaks of appearing in the AP's preseason poll, as both schools have appeared in every preseason poll since the 1991-92 season.

Unlike college football, which features just 119 Division I-A schools, college basketball has 325 school playing at the Division I-A level. There will be 61 schools this year featuring a new head coach. It's the most new coaches in any year since 1998 and the third-biggest turnover since the NCAA began tracking coaching changes in 1950. The Big 12 alone has six new head coaches, a 50 percent turnover rate. Of note, Oklahoma's Kelvin Sampson will be in Indiana this year, while former Cincinnati head coach, Bob Huggins, takes over at Kansas State.

Tying in both Indiana and the Big 12, I'll note that Texas Tech's Bob Knight needs just 11 more wins to pass Dean Smith as college basketball's all-time winningest coach. And who says good things don't happen to good people?