Today is ESPN's big college basketball kick-off marathon, and in between screaming shots of students and well-edited specials about the Barack Obama-Craig Robinson connection you've already grown tired of, there was actual basketball played last night. Nothing surprising happened. A quick compendium of the results:

Stephen Curry, right from the start. Last year's Big Dance darling (and JoePo's Sportsman of the Year) is going to have an adjustment to make this year: Rather than sneaking along all season, waiting to ambush teams with his incredible, and still unknown, talent, people are going to know. They already do. Look at me, right? I'm talking about Curry after what was essentially college basketball's opening night, and I'll admit this time last year I had no idea what a "Stephen Curry" was. 2008-09 will be different. Still, games against James Madison are not exactly high-pressure affairs, and Curry still looks like his old self: 33 points, nine assists, and a 99-64 win over JMU. Apparently, JMU's institutional strengths at producing sports bloggers don't translate to the basketball court.

Wait -- was it really that close? Far be it from me to begrudge a team a win, especially early in the season. These things take time. But glancing back at Georgetown's 71-62 win over the Jacksonville Dolphins, one can't help but think it should have been far, far worse. An even closer glance shows that though Georgetown raced out to a 12 point lead in the first half, they failed to sustain it, and actually lost the second half 37-34. Not a huge deal ... but interesting. In the meantime, Greg Monroe was the first player to do everything for the 'Town last night -- the first to record a block, a bucket, a rebound, even the first to get introduced. He ended with 14 and seven in his Hoya debut.

Tyreke is unique. (Apologies in advance. I'm sure you'll see that first sentence used as a Memphis headline 8,000 times this year. Or maybe I'm giving myself too much credit.) If you stuck around after last night's Monday Night Football game, you, like me, got to see your first glance of Memphis uber-recruit Tyreke Evans, who, as ESPN has been clear to point out, had his own barber in high school. So you know his lines will always be tight. His game is tight too: He's a physical player, can handle the ball in the open floor, appears to actually enjoy the idea of defense, and can shoot -- though his shot is one of the slower releases you'll see all year. John Calipari won't complain, though. Having perimeter shooting at all is bonus. He also might not complain because last night's win made him the winningest Memphis coach of all-time. Anyway, the new-look Tigers started off slow against UMass but quickly ran away 80-58; Evans finished with 19 and six.

The New New Davidson. Because in ESPN's world every team and/or player must fit the profile of "Next" in one way or another, we've already got our next overplayed storyline: Patty Mills and St. Mary's are the new Stephen Curry and Davidson. Of course Mills can't just be good on his own merits. Anyway, he is, very much so -- he had 27 points, six steals, and five assists -- and St. Mary's started down the road toward Davdisondom with 99-85 win over Fresno State. Fresno State's Paul George had 25 and 10 and, more importantly, an incredible, extended one-handed slam in traffic. I can'tfind footage of it anywhere, but rest assured it looked like this ... only more impressive.

Around the rest: Connecticut earned Roy Williams' No. 1 vote, crushing neighbor Hartford 99-56 ... Purdue blew out Eastern Michigan early and never looked back ... One day later, the Big East still looks as good as everyone says: Pittsburgh killed Miami (OH); Villanova put it on usual NCAA tournament suspect Fordham; and Marquette held off a Chicago St. team, but allowed a discouragingly high amount of points (87) in the meantime. If I keep writing about the Big East, I'm going to run out of adjectives for "defeated" in about two weeks.

Related: Big Ten Basketball, Mid-Majors and Below, Big East Basketball, C-USA Basketball, Cram Session