The University of Illinois and State Farm announced Monday that the school’s basketball arena, long known as Assembly Hall, will be renamed State Farm Center.

Michigan’s John Beilein recently broached a good idea: Make the NBA draft like the MLB draft.

We’re now officially in the college basketball offseason, a long seven months where the NBA playoffs, major league baseball, and eventually football serve as poor stand-ins for our sports attention. But before we shift into that fruitless exercise, let’s take a quick look at what awaits us beyond the gap.

It’s never too early to look ahead to next season, right? Actually, yes, the day after the completion of one season is entirely too early to start analyzing the next. But even if we don’t know which stars will return and which ones will go pro, it’s fun to consider what next season may bring. See my super-early 2013-14 power rankings in this post. And once all the NBA decision are made, I’ll update this list.

When the dust settled on the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, the Big Ten had four teams standing in the Sweet Sixteen. Here are some scattered thoughts on the action, bullet-point style: