college basketball

With North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough and Duke's Greg Paulus no longer around, fiery Maryland guard Greivis Vasquez expects to become Atlantic Coast Conference basketball fans' biggest target of verbal abuse this season.

His response: Bring it on.

For an entire month, the singular focus of Josh Pastner's preparation was getting the University of Memphis ready to play Jackson State in the regular-season opener last Friday night.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - This is the one piece of advice Marcus Ginyard wishes someone had given him before his freshman year at North Carolina: "Coach Williams is right 100 percent of the time, no matter what," Ginyard said. "Even when you know you're right, he's still right."

With basketball season officially under way, most of the attention is on the returning men's stars and highly touted recruits. Some of the Atlantic Coast Conference's impact players, though, are already around.

Here are five players capable of moving from the shadows to the spotlight in new roles this season:

Harrison Barnes says he can sense the push and pull, blue against blue, building like a rising tide.

Because of Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski's propensity to shorten his bench as the season stretches along, few former walk-ons ever have the chance to play important minutes, much less make an impact.

Point guard Jordan Davidson -- who began his career as an invited walk-on, and is now on scholarship -- hopes to change that.

Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir wasn't old enough to vote last November but on Tuesday night she sat at President Obama's left elbow, breaking her Ramadan fast, after he introduced her as "an inspiration to all of us."

One month before Derrick Rose was to enroll at the University of Memphis, he had not yet scored high enough on his standardized test.

He had tried three times. He had failed three times.

Can you imagine the mood in the Memphis basketball offices over this? Can you imagine the mood of head coach John Calipari?

Look at the bright side, Memphis basketball fans. At least your head coach hasn't had two Final Four appearances stripped from the record books.

John Calipari is Kentucky's problem now.

Or should it be Kentucky's punch line?

Q: When is a Final Four appearance not a Final Four appearance?

A: When Calipari is coaching!

The Atlantic Coast Conference will release the full basketball schedule for the 2009-10 season this week, likely on Thursday, but we already know the nuts and bolts of the conference schedule.

On the three-year rotation, the slate of ACC opponents will be just like the 2006-07 season. That's good news for Virginia and bad news for Georgia Tech.