College basketball season isn't that far off. With that, it's time to start looking into the important questions that will shape this season.

The question: The season after Villanova’s national championship, what kind of impact will the Big East have on the national college basketball picture?

Answer: A big one.

The critics, the skeptics, the doubters -- they all have to be quiet now. Kris Jenkins’ thrilling, buzzer-beating, game-winning, hero-making 3-pointer did more than merely secure Villanova’s second national championship in program history. It proved that what once seemed like an idyllic folly could actually work.

Yes, in a college sports era governed by greed, opportunism and football, a conference formed out of equal parts desperation and hope and brought together by institutional similarities and led by basketball proved it could win a national championship. The Big East effectively died on Sept. 18, 2011, when Syracuse and Pittsburgh left for the ACC. It was reborn on April 4, 2016, when the Wildcats cut down the nets in Houston.

Yet as critical as that breakthrough was for the league, this year might even be bigger. For the Big East to emphatically prove that it is here to stay as a legitimate force in the national college basketball landscape, it can’t afford to be a one-and-done. After all, the American Athletic Conference, essentially the Ellis Island of leagues -- attracting a diverse array of programs -- owns one national title, too, and it’s only been around for four years.

The Big East doesn’t have to win another title to stay relevant (the Big Ten hasn’t won one since 2000 and nobody is questioning its value) but it has to stay in the national conversation.

And it will.

Kris Jenkins returns after hitting the NCAA-winning shot last year that propelled Villanova and the Big East back to prominence. Bill Frakes for ESPN

It all starts, rightly so, with Villanova. If the defending national champions don’t open the season among the top five in the country, check the ballot box. Three starters and three serious bench contributors return from the title-winning squad, including Josh Hart and Jenkins, the team’s leading scorers from a season ago. And presuming some NCAA paperwork is cleared up, Wildcats coach Jay Wright adds talented Omari Spellman to anchor the post. Wright told ESPN.com that the university is still going through the appeals process with the NCAA and hopes to know something by the end of September.

The looming question is how will the Wildcats replace Ryan Arcidiacono and Daniel Ochefu, not so much as scorers -- though both were pretty adept at that -- but as leaders. On the final play of the title game, Ochefu mopped the floor and set a screen while Arcidiacono passed up on a shot and flipped the ball to Jenkins, selfless decisions that epitomized who those seniors were and why Villanova won the title. If Jenkins and Hart assume the mantle deftly, the Wildcats will be incredibly dangerous.

Villanova’s league-leading running mate, Xavier, has had its share of offseason issues this year. Earlier this month, Myles Davis was suspended indefinitely weeks after a judge granted his girlfriend’s request for a protective order against him and in May. J.P. Macura was arrested for disorderly conduct, though the league’s Sixth Man of the Year remains with the team. Potentially losing Davis, who averaged 10.8 points per game, hurts the Musketeers, but with Edmond Sumner, Trevon Bluiett as well as Norfolk State transfer RaShid Gaston and freshman Quentin Goodin, coach Chris Mack has plenty of talent available for another strong year.

But Villanova and Xavier have been NCAA sure things for a while now, with the Musketeers’ success while in the Atlantic 10 making them an attractive choice when the Big East went shopping for new teams. The real news this season is that other teams are poised to join the front-runners. With a backcourt pairing of assist machine Maurice Watson and Kansas State transfer Marcus Foster, Creighton is looking not just at its first NCAA bid since Doug McDermott left, but also perhaps a nice run through March. Isaiah Whitehead might have left for the NBA, but the nucleus of the Seton Hall roster that upset Villanova in the Big East Tournament title game returns. Butler must replace Roosevelt Jones and Kellen Dunham, but Andrew Chrabascz and Kelan Martin are a good place to start, and George Washington transfer Kethan Savage is a very nice addition.

That’s five teams in a 10-team league that offer a legitimate reason for Big East optimism. Now here’s the real key: Georgetown. Let’s face it, name brands matter, and like Villanova, Georgetown is part of the bridge between the old Big East and the new (of course, so is St. John’s, but the Red Storm aren’t quite ready for prime time). The Hoyas flopped miserably last year, nosediving to a 15-18 finish. Now that Villanova has broken through its NCAA first weekend blockade, the Wildcats have passed the ignominious torch to its Big East partner. Georgetown hasn’t seen a regional semifinal since 2007.

Hoyas coach John Thompson III will have several options this year; along with returners L.J. Peak and Isaac Copeland, Georgetown adds Louisville transfer Akoy Agau, Robert Morris graduate transfer Rodney Pryor and junior college player Jonathan Mulmore. If he can mix them into an NCAA success story, it not only will be all the better for the Hoyas, but also all the better for a Big East already poised to prove it’s here to stay.