The Hunt for the Most Interesting Team in the World is the Dagger's 2009-10 countdown preview series. Check out the overriding principles here.

Last year's record: 33-4 (16-0 Conference USA)

2009-2010's toughest games: at Kansas (neutral site: Scottrade Center in St. Louis), vs Tennessee, vs Gonzaga

Primary attraction: Memphis, like new coach Josh Pastner, is talented but unproven. How far can talent take a Calipari-less Tigers squad in 2009-10?

Three items of undeniable interest:

1. Forget everything you knew about the Memphis Tigers. Rough going for Memphis this offseason, huh? First, 30-win-season machine John Calipari is lured away by the high-profile of Kentucky. Then Calipari snatches up all his recruits and takes them with him. Then it's revealed that former Tiger Derrick Rose quite possibly committed SAT-related fraud, and because Rose never responded to the NCAA's ongoing investigation, Memphis bore the brunt of the punishment: The school was forced to vacate its 38 wins and NCAA tourney runner-up finish from 2007-08 and is now under a three-year probationary period. To recap: Calipari? Gone. Best recruiting class ever? Gone. Best season in school history? Gone. The Tigers as we've known them? Gone.

What's left behind is what could make this Tigers team so interesting. Calipari was so good at getting players to Memphis that even after his 2009 class exodus, the Tigers still have more than enough talent to win their conference handily. Duke transfer Elliot Williams is eligible to play immediately; that gives the Tigers a backcourt player with big-time hoops experience. Robert Sallie, who struggled for most of 2008-09, had his 35-point coming-out party in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Doneal Mack was a highly touted recruit, but has never lived up to his potential. Can he turn it on in his senior season?

Meanwhile, the Tigers are talented but unproven in their frontcourt, which is a pretty perfect microcosm of the team in general. There is talent here. Can it coalesce?

2. Boy genius, or just a boy? The man responsible for doing something with that considerable talent is Josh Pastner. It is not an exaggeration to say that Pastner is, bless his heart, sort of insane. Just 31, he takes over an elite college hoops program, but his youth belies his experience: Pastner has been doing this pretty much since he could breathe. To wit:

After traveling 90 minutes to watch Stephen Jackson play in a ninth-grade game, Pastner approached the future NBA star’s mother in an attempt to convince her to let her son join his AAU squad, Houston Hoops. “Well, ummm …,” a confused Judy Jackson said, “are there any adults involved? Where are your parents?” Reasonable questions, to be sure. Pastner was only 14.

Yes, Pastner had his own AAU squad at the age of 14 which, by the age of 16, his father had ceded entirely into Josh's control. Josh assumed the role of player-coach and was put in charge of team trips, fundraising, uniforms, recruiting -- the whole thing. At the age of 16. At 16, I was washing dishes and thinking I was really responsible for my age. Pastner had done this before.

The question is not whether Pastner can recruit; he was instrumental in Calipari's success at luring players to Memphis. The question is whether Pastner can coach. And how? Does he stick with Calipari's dribble-drive motion? Does he do something entirely different? Is he just young and crazy enough to find his own blend of new-age offensive basketball styles? Or is he just young?

3. Pierre Henderson-Niles, inspiration to us all. Anyone interested in dropping a few pounds will also be interested in the story of Pierre Henderson-Niles, who was one of the top 30 players in his recruiting class before he arrived at Memphis and ballooned to 347 pounds. This offseason, Henderson dropped the equivalent of a 12-year-old in poundage; he now weighs 278, and is reportedly in the best shape of his life. If there's any time for Henderson-Niles to regain the talent that made him so special in high school, it's now. Pastner's wide-open frontcourt will be counting on it.

Bonus: Derrick Rose is really good, vol. 4,359:

No basketball fan, college or otherwise, needs to be told how good Derrick Rose is. But sometimes it's nice to watch what happens when a really good pro player is forced to play college basketball for one year. Things like this happen:

Rose is difficult to handle in the NBA; his speed and athleticism made him a star in his rookie season, and he couldn't even shoot. That's the natural adjustment one faces in the NBA ranks, though. "Difficult to handle" in the NBA corresponds to college roughly as "frighteningly good." Derrick Rose was that.

Related: C-USA Basketball, The Hunt