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As you’ve probably heard by now, Andrew Wiggins is a Kansas Jayhawk. On Tuesday, the No. 1 basketball player in the country, who some say is the best high school hoopster since LeBron James, elected to become a Jayhawk, choosing the school over offers from Kentucky, Florida State, North Carolina, Nike and Reebok.

Ok, so I’m obviously kidding about the last two, but Tuesday did wrap up one of the wildest recruitments in recent college basketball history, one which seemingly started in the Mesozoic era and ended with everyone in the college basketball world left clueless as to which school Wiggins would choose. In the process it turned John Calipari in a rumbling, stumbling tweeting mess on Tuesday morning, and even led Bill Self to say afterward, “we never had any idea which way he was leading.”  

And really, doesn’t that last sentence tell you how crazy these last few months have been? When the best recruiter in the history of college basketball is forced to sell the virtues of his program through social media, and the coach who ultimately signed the same kid had no idea he was coming, well, that’s when you know things got weird.

They certainly did get weird with Andrew Wiggins.

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The moment college basketball fans have been eagerly waiting for has finally arrived: Andrew Wiggins is set to make his college decision. On Tuesday, the super-recruit from Canada will announce whether he plans on playing college hoops next year at Kentucky, Florida State, North Carolina or Kansas.

Now for those of you who don’t run in super-nerdy sports circles like I do (aka, you have this thing called “a life” keeping you busy) Wiggins’ announcement is big for two very distinct reasons:

A. Many believe Wiggins to be the best basketball player to come through the high school ranks since LeBron James graduated in 2003, a statement which needs no further contextual explanation.

And also…

B. Wiggins’ recruitment has been one of the most over-speculated, under-reported sports stories in recent memory. The simple truth is that no one outside of Wiggins and his family seem to have any idea where the kid is going to college. Yet that hasn’t stopped just about everyone from weighing in with an unfounded opinion on where he’ll end up.

Now in Wiggins’ defense, it seems as though the delay in his college decision is much more because he’s a genuinely torn 17-year-old (can you believe Wiggins was born in…1995!!!) than because he’s looking for any type of ancillary attention… which admittedly, is a good thing. Still, we’ve all got lives to live (even you, “Weird Message Board Guy No. 7261”) and when Wiggins does finally make his announcement, it will allow all of us to move on with ours.

Simply put, everyone has their own reasons as to why they’re excited about Wiggins’ college decision.

Here are 50 of mine.

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He is one of the leading names in the college basketball media, and a voice that every fan in America knows. And on Monday, he stopped by the Aaron Torres Sports Podcast to talk about his new book ‘Toughness.’

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Yes, that man is of course Jay Bilas, who has not only become the pre-eminent voice in college basketball, but also one of the most articulate people in the media on any and all subjects related to college sports. And on Monday he stopped the show to discuss his book, while also sharing deep insight into the people and circumstances that made him into the man he is today.

The topics we chatted about include:

- Why a 2009 ESPN.com article served as inspiration to write this book, and why the response by people not just in sports, but in the military and other walks of life let him know how important this subject is to so many people.

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Alright, so let me start by saying this: I’m not a college basketball recruiting expert, nor do I play on one on TV.

What a crappy opening sentence, huh? But the point is, that if you saw the headline “Aaron attends AAU event” and thought to yourself, “Crap, that guy seems to be marginally knowledgeable about sports stuff, let me check out this link to see who my favorite team is recruiting,” well, unfortunately, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Yes, I attended this weekend’s Nike EYBL showcase in Los Angeles, an event which featured just about every big-name recruit in the country and was attended by a bajillion college basketball coaches that you know and might possibly love. However, just because I was in attendance, does not mean I know a damn thing about recruiting. ESPN’s Dave Telep knows recruiting. Fox’s Evan Daniels knows recruiting. Me? I know about as much on college basketball recruiting as you do on your kid’s after school activities. And admit it, you don’t know much. Do you, dad???

But while I’m not a recruiting expert, what I am is a Grade A People-Watcher, and after attending the event on Saturday, I’ve got to admit that there might not be a better place for college basketball people-watching than a big-time AAU tournament. Just about every big name in college coaching you can think of was there, from Coach K to Roy Williams, Mark Few, Andy Enfield, Bill Self, Josh Pastner and Tom Izzo and a million other guys too. Shoot, at one point I basically turned into a teenage guy at the Playboy mansion, nearly getting whiplash turning my head so many times.

Anyway, that also brings me to the reality that you’re going to get from this article: If you’re a college basketball fan looking for insight on recruiting, go somewhere else. But if you’re looking for some goofy gossip on your favorite coaches, well then, I’m your man.

Simply put, AAU Tournaments are an awesome way to spend a weekend.

Here are 10 takeaways from attending my first one.

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Don’t worry, this isn’t intended to be a super-long post on Louisville’s title game victory over Michigan on Monday night. With nearly 24 hours since the confetti fell and 23 hours and 59 minutes since Rick Pitino nearly had a heart attack on the way to shake John Beilein’s hand, I understand you’re probably tired of coverage of this game. I get that.

That’s also why I’m not going to waste anyone’s time regurgitating story lines you already know.  You don’t need me to tell you that with the win, Pitino became the first head coach to lead two separate programs to a national title. You already know that Spike Albrecht became the first player yet to hit puberty to ever score 17 points in one half of a National Championship game. You’re plenty aware of Kevin Ware’s ‘One Shining Moment’ and that most of Michigan’s roster is more likely to collect NBA paychecks in six months than renew their scholarship papers.

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After thinking about Monday night's championship game for way too long, here are a bunch of different random thoughts I have on the match-up we're getting courtesy of Louisville-Michigan.

A little bit of luck goes a long way

So they say a little bit of luck goes a long way, and before we can start talking about Monday night’s game, we first have to go back and say this: Louisville was lucky to survive Wichita State and advance to this title game, in the same way that Michigan needed a prayer, a miracle and a Presidential pardon to get by Kansas in the Sweet 16. I’m still not sure how the Wolverines won that game, and as it pertains to the Cards on Saturday, I’m still not sure how they came out on top either.

I mean seriously, think about it. Louisville didn’t get what anyone would consider a “good” game from a single key player (Russ Smith had his worst game of the tournament, Peyton Siva finished the night 1 for 9 from the field, and other than that huge block in the closing seconds, what did Gorgui Dieng do?). The Cardinals also forced just 10 turnovers (a number which might be good for some teams, but is a tournament low for Louisville) and were outrebounded 35-32 overall on the night by Wichita State (more on that coming). They also got a huge spark from named Tim Henderson, someone who I’m pretty sure Rick Pitino hadn’t even heard of five days ago, let alone you or I.

Yet despite all that, here we are, with Louisville now just 40 minutes away from claiming the school’s third National Championship.

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So here we are.

We’ve now spent the last six months watching, waiting and anticipating about how this college basketball season would play out... only to basically end up right back where we began in October. Of the four teams in Atlanta this week, three were in the preseason Top 10, meaning that yes, all those college basketball “experts” that annoy the crap out of you during the season were apparently right all along. The fourth Final Four club is the shocking Shockers of Wichita State, a mid-major juggernaut which we all knew was going to break through at some point. Little did we know it’d be this year, and all the way to the Final Four.

But regardless of how we arrived at the mecca of college basketball, we are here, in what is shaping up to be a really fun Final Four. We’ve got two good games, featuring teams which have arrived here in totally different ways. Louisville is one of the most complete teams we’ve seen in years, with Wichita State (their opponent on Saturday) almost a watered-down version of them (the Shockers do nothing great, but just about everything good). And of course it’ll be great offense against potentially historically good defense in the second match-up between Michigan-Syracuse.

So who’ve you got in Saturday’s games? Let’s take a look.

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Yesterday, I started a column on Louisville’s Final Four run by saying the following:

To appreciate the significance of Louisville’s 85-63 Elite Eight beat down of Duke on Sunday, you’ve first got to appreciate just how this program came to get to that exact moment.

A day later, it only seems appropriate to start a column on another column, on another huge college basketball story the same way:

To understand why Andy Enfield was a grand slam, can’t miss, zero downside hire for USC, you first have to understand the dynamics behind the program he inherited, and where it ranks in the Los Angeles sports pecking order.

And essentially, USC basketball is low in that pecking order. Very low. Like “you need a microscope, a compass and a couple good friends to find it,” kind of low.

And while I’ll spare everyone the time (and in some cases anger) of ranking the Los Angeles sports fan-bases, just know that after living in this city for nearly a year, I can tell you that there a number of teams people care about significantly more than USC’s hoops squad. That includes the Lakers and Dodgers yes, but also teams like the Los Angeles Galaxy (from some league “called Major League Soccer”) and doesn’t include non-traditional random sports which pop up all year long (think, beach volleyball, or the random international soccer match which might end up at the Rose Bowl). Not to mention all the non-sports stuff that comes up too.

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To appreciate the significance of Louisville’s 85-63 Elite Eight beat down of Duke on Sunday, you’ve first got to appreciate just how this program came to get to that exact moment. For the Cardinals, it hasn’t been a yellow brick road on the path to college basketball glory, but instead a long, winding one, which cast doubt on these players, their coach and the future of this program overall.  

To be honest, I’m not totally sure when the Louisville Cardinals turned into, well... this (in essence the 2013 National Championship favorite), but what I can tell you is that I was able to witness first-hand when they were at the opposite end of this college basketball paradigm. It came in my one and only trip to Kentucky last January, and was at a time when Louisville’s hoops’ program was something worse than bad. They were irrelevant. Irrelevant to the rest of the college basketball world, and overshadowed in their own state by the Big Blue monolith known as Kentucky basketball.

And it was also at that moment when this whole thing hit its tipping point, and Louisville’s basketball program reached its own personal rock-bottom. It was January 19, 2012, and I was in town to cover Kentucky’s game with Alabama that weekend. Meanwhile, Louisville was coming off a double-digit loss to Marquette the night before. In the process they’d fallen to 14-5 overall and to the fringe of the Top 25.

Yet for Louisville fans the real concern didn’t come from that game, or frankly anything that their program wasn’t doing. Instead the real concern came from roughly 80 miles away and everything that John Calipari was doing at Kentucky.

For Louisville fans, it was a confluence of events which really did provide a worst case scenario.

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After picking a grand total of two of the four Thursday night games correctly (I’m batting .500!!) I’m back, with take a stab at how Friday night’s Midwest and South Regional semifinal games will play out.

No, my track record isn’t sparkling, and yes, you should totally take them with a grain of salt. At the same time, don’t ever forget the adage that I choose to live my life by: Even a broken clock is right twice a day...meaning, there’s at least a tiny chance I won’t look like a total idiot by the end of the night.

Now, let’s get to the games. As always, you're more than welcome to tell me why I'm right (or more likely wrong) either in the comments section below, or over on Twitter @Aaron_Torres.