Eight storylines to watch on college basketball's opening night

Reigning national champion Duke, top-ranked North Carolina and 21 other teams in the AP Top 25 will be in action Friday night when the 2015-16 college basketball season finally tips off. Here's a look at eight of the most important storylines to follow during opening night.

1. Which elite freshmen will impress in their college debut?

LSU's Ben Simmons, the fourth freshman ever to be named an AP preseason All-American, will make his college debut when the Tigers host McNeese State. The Australian-born future lottery pick will be a matchup nightmare for opponents because at 6-foot-10, 240 pounds, he handles the ball well enough to lead a fast break and creates for himself or for others off the dribble.

Cal's matchup with Rice will also provide a glimpse of McDonald's All-Americans Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb, the two pillars of the Bears' most heralded recruiting class since the days of Jason Kidd and Lamond Murray. Brown is a strong, athletic small forward capable of bull rushing his way to the rim and defending multiple positions, while the 6-foot-11 Rabb is an explosive, active big man who blocks shots, creates deflections and controls the glass.

The stable of talented freshmen at Kentucky and Duke will also be in action when the Wildcats host Albany and the Blue Devils meet Siena. Kentucky's Skal Labissiere and Duke's Brandon Ingram are the freshman headliners, but the more intriguing aspect of these games could be seeing how the Wildcats' trio of talented ball-handling guards coexists when on the floor at the same time and how freshman Derryck Thornton performs for the Blue Devils at point guard.

2. Can top-ranked North Carolina dispatch of Temple without Marcus Paige?

On a night when none of the AP Top 25 teams in action face one another, the Tar Heels probably have the biggest test. They'll travel to the Naval Academy to face Temple, which returns all but two rotation players from a team that won 26 games last season and reached the NIT semifinals after being snubbed on Selection Sunday.

Complicating matters for the Tar Heels is that they'll be without leading scorer Marcus Paige, an All-American candidate who averaged 14.1 points and 4.4 assists last season despite a lingering foot injury. This year it's a broken bone in Paige's non-shooting hand that will sideline him the next few weeks.

North Carolina has enough playmaking guards to make up for Paige's absence, but the Tar Heels will miss his outside shooting. Expect Temple to slow down the tempo, pack in its defense against North Carolina's armada of big men and force the Tar Heels to shoot from deep. No North Carolina player besides Paige averaged even one 3-pointer a game last season or shot above 37 percent from behind the arc.

3. Which small-conference power can upset a high-profile team?

Give Baylor coach Scott Drew a ton of credit for doing something few of his peers were willing to do. Not only did he schedule three-time reigning Southland Conference champion Stephen F. Austin, he also did so in his team's season opener.

With four starters back from a 29-win team including conference player of the year Thomas Walkup and promising sophomore guard Ty Charles, the Lumberjacks are dangerous opponent. Baylor will have a massive edge in size and strength in the frontcourt, but new starting point guard Lester Medford, freshman shooting guard King McClure and the rest of the Bears' unproven backcourt will be tested.

In addition to Baylor, there are a handful of other high-major programs opening at home against mid-majors they cannot afford to take lightly. Marquette will be challenged by Ohio Valley Conference favorite Belmont, which returns a quartet of starters from an NCAA tournament team including high-scoring guard Craig Bradshaw. And rebuilding Missouri can't afford to overlook anyone this season but especially not a Wofford team that went 28-7 last year.

4. How big an impact will the rule changes have?

Hoping to increase scoring in college basketball and make the sport more watchable, the NCAA approved a series of major rule changes last June. Those included shortening the shot clock to 30 seconds, reducing the number of timeouts allotted to each team and increasing the freedom of movement for offensive players.

The change that coaches believe will have the most impact are the rules limiting contact. They expected a significant uptick in fouls early in the season as players get used to the changes, but many also acknowledge those whistle-filled November and December games will be worth it in the long run if it leads to the game become higher scoring and more aesthetically pleasing.

Scoring in Division I plunging to 67.5 points per game for the 2012-13 season, the lowest in the 3-point era. A short-lived emphasis on freedom of movement during the 2013-14 season led to an uptick, but that evaporated quickly and scoring plunged back to 67.7 points per game this past season. With the full backing of the NCAA and college basketball's rules committee, expect referees to enforce the new rules all season this time.

5. How will the new coaches fare in their debuts?

Of all the new hires made last spring, none faces more pressure in his debut season than Steve Prohm. The new Iowa State coach is replacing the most popular man in Ames, Fred Hoiberg, and he has inherited a roster that Cyclones fans believe is strong enough to contend for a place in the Final Four.

The first meaningful glimpse of how Iowa State will look under Prohm arrives Friday evening when the Cyclones meet Colorado on a neutral floor in Sioux Falls, S.D. This is a game Iowa State should win, yet the Buffs can be dangerous if guards Dominique Collier, Josh Fortune and Tre'Shaun Fletcher can provide some perimeter offense in support of standout big man Josh Scott.

Prohm is one of a handful of new faces in new places Friday night. We'll get an early look at how much HAVOC Shaka Smart intends to run at Texas when the new-look Longhorns face Washington in China. We'll also get to see Florida's first game in nearly two decades without Billy Donovan on the sideline when new coach Mike White leads the Gators against Navy.

6. Is St. John's really that bad?

Exhibition results are often overblown, but this one was hard to overlook. St. Thomas Aquinas walloped tradition-rich St. John's 90-58 last week in what was easily November's most eye-popping exhibition result. The Johnnies trailed by double figures less than six minutes into the game, by 16 at halftime and by 20 or more for most of the second half despite facing a Division II opponent that lost all three games it played against D-I competition the previous year by an average of 34 points.

Whether that performance was a fluke or an omen should become a bit clearer Friday night when St. John's opens the regular season against Wagner. The Seahawks lost 20 games last season and were picked sixth in the Northeast Conference's preseason poll, but the return of athletic forward Dwaun Anderson gives them the potential to exceed that prediction.

St. John's, on the other hand, does not return a single player from last season that averaged more than 1.5 points per game and also lost its top freshman for the season due to an eligibility issue. So Chris Mullin's debut season is clearly going to be a struggle for the Johnnies. And Friday should provide an early glimpse of just how bad it could be.

7. How will Gonzaga's unproven backcourt look?

Thanks to the return of All-American candidate Kyle Wiltjer, promising NBA prospect Domantas Sabonis and skilled 7 footer Przemek Karnowski, Gonzaga boasts maybe the nation's best frontcourt. What will determine whether the Zags can match the success of last year's 35-win team, however, will be the performance of a revamped backcourt.

With Kevin Pangos having finally graduated, Gonzaga will turn to redshirt freshman Josh Perkins at point guard when it opens the season against Pittsburgh on Friday night in Japan. Perkins is a former consensus top 50 recruit who has a quick first step to the basket, a solid jump shot and outstanding court vision, however, he can occasionally get a bit too fancy with his passes and commit too many turnovers.

The wings are a bigger question mark for the Zags as Kyle Dranginis, Silas Melson and Eric McClellan will probably all split time. Gonzaga needs McClellan to take over the role of defensive stopper from the graduated Gary Bell. It would also help if all three can knock down open jump shots to make opponents pay for committing help defenders to stop the Zags' frontcourt standouts.

8. Will a point guard emerge at Duke?

When Tyus Jones decided to parlay his brilliant freshman season into an NBA contract this past spring, one of college basketball's most talent-rich programs was left in an unusual position. Not only did Duke not have a single point guard on its 2015-16 roster, all the elite point guards in Class of 2015 had also already signed with other schools.

Mike Krzyzewski and his staff solved this problem by putting the full-court press on Class of 2016 prospect Derryck Thornton and persuading him to graduate a year ahead of time. Thornton will make his college debut on Friday when Duke hosts Siena.

The ideal situation for Duke would be Thornton playing his way into a starting job, but that may take some time since he was already behind everyone else on the roster since he only arrived on campus in mid-August. Therefore it's likely that combo guard Grayson Allen may see substantial early playing time at point guard while Jones adjusts to the college game.

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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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