Will 2016-17 make college basketball in Kentucky great again?

The second decade of the 21st century had been a thrilling time for NCAA Division I basketball in Kentucky — until last season.

Since 2010, the University of Kentucky men have played in four Final Fours and won an NCAA title (2012). The University of Louisville men have played in two Final Fours and won an NCAA title (2013).

Morehead State (2011), Murray State (2012) and Western Kentucky (2012) have all won NCAA Tournament games — and Eastern Kentucky (2015) scared Kansas in the 2015 Big Dance.

On the women’s side, Louisville went to the 2013 NCAA title game and Kentucky has played in three Elite Eights and five Sweet 16s since 2010.

Last year, however, a state used to March gladness got lots of sadness.

For the first time since 1991, the commonwealth sent only one team, UK, to the men’s NCAA tourney. The Wildcats were bounced in the round of 32 by Indiana.

On the women’s side, both UK and U of L were beaten in their hometowns by lower seeds.

Will 2016-17 make basketball in the commonwealth great again? Here are 10 story lines to watch:

10. UK Hoops after the upheaval. The Kentucky women’s basketball program endured a year of tumult and defections last season. The final count was seven players transferring and five recruits de-committing. All of that makes Matthew Mitchell and UK Hoops the most interesting story in Kentucky college basketball in 2016-17. Though the No. 19 Wildcats return only six scholarship players, UK has talent, especially senior stars Makayla Epps and Evelyn Akhator. Can Mitchell and the Kentucky women create an uplifting season that turns the program narrative back in a positive direction?

9. The ex-Cats. If you are a UK Hoops backer melancholy over what might have been, you can track the players who were once affiliated with Kentucky. Guard Linnae Harper will be eligible mid-semester at Ohio State. Guard Jaycee Coe will play for Western Kentucky this year — and be joined at the semester break by forward Kyvin Goodin-Rogers. Center Ivana Jakubcova is a graduate transfer at Southern California. Guard Chrishae Rowe, who never played for UK after transferring from Oregon, will play at Mississippi. Former UK signees Morgan Rich (Oklahoma), Lindsey Corsaro (UCLA) and Chanin Scott (Georgia Tech) will all make their college debuts this winter, as will ex-UK commitment Sydney Shelton (Butler). Meanwhile, former UK forwards Alexis Jennings (South Carolina) and Batouly Camara (Connecticut) are sitting out 2016-17 as transfers.

8. An Unforgettable success? In four seasons as Morehead State men’s coach, Sean Woods (75-63) has won more games than any prior MSU head man. A year ago, the ex-UK point guard led the Eagles (23-14) to the championship series of the College Basketball Invitational before falling in overtime at Nevada in the deciding game. The thing Woods has yet to do is get the Eagles to the NCAA Tournament. Whether this is the year will depend on whether the coach can find capable replacements for departed guards Brent Arrington (graduated) and Corban Collins (graduate transfer to Alabama).

7. A historic season at NKU. After four years spent passing through the transition from NCAA Division II to Division I, Northern Kentucky University is eligible to compete in the Big Dance for the first time in 2016-17. For the Norse men, John Brannen, the former Eastern Kentucky assistant, brought in a heralded freshman class that includes 2016 Kentucky Mr. Basketball Carson Williams of Owen County and ex-Caverna star Mason Faulkner. For the NKU women, Camryn Whitaker, the ex-UK assistant, is in season one as head coach.

6. The scoring queen goes to college. Whitney Creech became a Kentucky folk hero last winter at tiny Jenkins High School as the 5-foot-8 guard became the commonwealth’s all-time high school basketball scoring leader (5,527 points). Now a freshman guard with the Western Kentucky women, Creech will be a subject of much interest as people scrutinize her transition to college basketball.

5. Repping “The Ville” Until Quentin Snider (Ballard) and Ray Spalding (Trinity) last season, the University of Louisville had not had two players from the city start multiple games in the same season since DeJuan Wheat (Ballard) and Jason Osborne (Male) in 1994-95. If U of L is to make an NCAA Tournament run in 2017, heady point guard Snider and talented power forward Spalding will play vital roles.

4. Thomas More women protect “the streak.” When the Thomas More women’s basketball program tips off this season Nov. 15 at Centre, the two-time defending NCAA Division III champion Saints will be riding a 66-game winning streak. The cornerstone of Thomas More’s historic run, 2012 Kentucky Miss Basketball Sydney Moss , is gone. Yet those expecting Coach Jeff Hans’ program to disappear should consider: In the two seasons before Moss transferred from Florida, Thomas More went 25-5 and 27-2.

3. “Walz-ing” toward a championship? After losing to Connecticut twice in NCAA championship games (2009 and 2013), Louisville women’s coach Jeff Walz vowed to up his recruiting and land the type of players it took to exceed UConn. The impact of that should be on display this winter when U of L boasts a roster deep with acclaimed talent. With UConn thought to be in a reloading year, could 2017 be the year Walz snares the state its first NCAA Division I women’s national championship?

2. The Stansbury effect. From the time Rick Stansbury was named Western Kentucky men’s basketball coach, there’s been a different energy around the WKU program. The longtime former Mississippi State head coach, a Meade County product, inherited a roster that, literally, had no guards. So Stansbury worked the college “waiver wire” and landed graduate transfers Que Johnson (Washington State), Junior Lomomba (Providence) and Pancake Thomas (Hartford) to man the backcourt. The real excitement came with Stansbury landing the 2017-18 commitment of five-star high school center Mitchell Robinson. With Stansbury’s recruiting prowess, can WKU become the next major mid-major?

1. Calipari’s fab new “trio.” In Bam Adebayo, De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk, John Calipari may finally have a trio of one-and-done freshmen dynamic enough to match the original Cal-era Big Three: John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe. The question is whether post player Adebayo and guards Fox and Monk can carry UK to the national title that eluded Wall, Cousins and Bledsoe.

This story was originally published November 6, 2016 at 1:17 AM with the headline "Will 2016-17 make college basketball in Kentucky great again?."