Good Morning, Illini Nation: It's college basketball season!

Welcome to “Good Morning, Illini Nation,” your daily dose of college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Scott Richey. He’ll offer up insights every morning on Brad Underwood’s team and college basketball at large:

It's officially college basketball season!

Here's the deal, though. Two Illinois basketball games — tonight against Fairleigh Dickinson and Thursday against Penn — plus an Illinois football game Friday night against Nebraska will certainly curtail my ability to watch other games this week. And, if you're reading this, you're likely an Illini fan and would face similar constraints.

With that in mind, I constructed a schedule of five games worth watching this week that won't get in the way of watching Quentin Coleman and Co. play a pair of games and Katin Houser and the gang try to get bowl eligible against the Cornhuskers.

It's how I'll be spending my week (even if the high-level matchups are kind of few and far between):

Don't miss the battle for the Sunshine State (or at least most of it) before either heading to State Farm Center or tuning in to WDWS or BTN to catch Illinois take on FDU. Retention was strong for Florida, but the Gators' depth is a serious question mark. The Hurricanes, on the other hand, have real breakout potential after pairing their retention efforts (*Malik Reneau, Shelton Henderson and Dante Allen) with two impressive portal snags (Acaden Lewis and Somto Cyril) and a potential one-and-done freshman (Caleb Gaskins).

Tune in if only to show some support for Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes. He thought he'd landed another potential star guard (something he's done well for the Demon Deacons) only to see said guard's star start rising and Illinois' circumstances change where adding Quentin Coleman was both possible and a borderline necessity. Also, Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner is worth watching just to see what he might do.

Penny Hardaway's profile in Memphis has lost some of its luster, so it will be interesting to see if the city's favorite son still has the same level of support after last season's 13-19 debacle. The Tigers certainly aren't shying away from playing good teams, with Iowa State in their season opener and then VCU, Vanderbilt and Louisville to close out the first two weeks. The team to watch Saturday, though, is VCU. The Atlantic-10 favorites (depending on Robbie Avila's eligibility at Saint Louis) brought back several key players from last year's NCAA tournament team.

Here we have two proud programs that have fallen on hard times. Both are moderately interesting this season, though. A healthy Jaland Lowe could be a huge get for the Hoyas in a second chance, of sorts, backcourt that also features Elmarko Jackson and Vyctorious Miller. Maryland is in a similar situation with D.J. Wagner, but the Terrapins have a higher ceiling with Pharrel Payne and Andre Mills back plus the additions of five-star freshman Baba Oladotun and transfers Bishop Boswell and Tomislav Buljan.

We'll find out what's better — at least for an early November game — in this matchup between the retention-heavy Cavaliers and the latest freshman-heavy for John Calipari. The Razorbacks are not short on talent, but most of them are still brand new on the college basketball scene. Virginia can lean on more established players like Chance Mallory, Thijs De Ridder and Johann Grunloh. All of them are sophomores, but it doesn't hurt De Ridder is 23 years old and Grunloh is 21.

From the source Scott Richey covers college basketball for The News-Gazette. His email is [email protected], and you can follow him on Twitter (@srrichey).