It’s never too early to look at what’s to come. Over the next few weeks, we will give you a peek at what is ahead for teams in the Power 5 conferences and some other teams expected to be players on the national scene. Next up: Baylor Bears.

In an NCAA tournament full of pure, unadulterated insanity -- one that included, in a three-week span, the most unlikely comeback in the history of college basketball and the best title game the sport has ever waged -- it takes a lot for any one moment to remain filed away in the mental cabinet titled "Awesome NCAA tournament stuff" weeks or months after the fact.

Take a bow, Taurean Prince! You totally made the cut.

Hot take: Prince's Tyrion Lannister-worthy response to the question "How does Baylor get outrebounded by Yale?" -- asked in a confrontational tone by a reporter apparently unaware Yale was a top-10 rebounding team on both ends of the floor pretty much all season -- was quite possibly the most perfect moment of the tournament that didn't involve Kris Jenkins. The clear, concise language. The accurate description of the conditions required to record a rebound in the game of basketball. The deadpan tone. And, as the ideal closer, the withering look Prince delivers as he turns his face away from the dude he just embarrassed.

The time and place made the response extra impressive. For that matter, time and place made it possible in the strictest sense, for the same reason there weren't other memorable moments in Baylor's March: Just before Prince went viral, his team lost, for the second-straight season, in the round of 64, to a double-digit seed from a mid-major league.

The twist was especially cruel for Prince, Rico Gathers, and Lester Medford, the team's three seniors, the core of a group determined to avenge 2015's come-from-ahead shock loss to Georgia State. And it wasn't much easier on coach Scott Drew, whose constantly impressive work in Waco, Texas, will be more difficult to sustain in the year to follow.

Mostly, that challenge spike is about those three seniors, and how difficult they will be to replace. Prince was far more than witty barbs; he was Baylor's best and most well-rounded offensive player for his final two seasons on campus, a rare mix of athleticism, fluidity, perimeter touch and active defense, all in a 6-foot-8 frame. He averaged more than 29 percent of his team's shots as a junior and senior, a figure no other Bear came close to matching in either campaign.

Gathers, meanwhile, was one of the nation's best, most ferocious rebounders -- particularly on the offensive end -- for all four years of his career. He never ranked outside of the top 10 nationally in offensive rebounding rate in any of those seasons; only once, as a freshman, did he slip out of the top five. There is a reason he was drafted in the sixth round of last week's NFL draft: He was an absolute monster. (Also, presumably, because Cowboys owner Jerry Jones saw a random Baylor game on TV and immediately sent a team-wide email requesting a reminder to "draft that big ol' basketball kid down in Waco." Or something like that.)

Medford, a two year player after a junior college transfer, was just plain solid: He connected at the exact same rate from the 3-point line (37.8 percent) in both his junior and senior seasons, while improving his assist rate and getting (and making) more free throws, year-over-year. Medford was a valuable third wheel, in the least pejorative sense, to the Prince-Gathers frontcourt, on a team that lost its entire (very good) backcourt to graduation last spring.

Baylor was able to withstand the losses of Royce O'Neale and Kenny Chery last offseason, at least on the offensive end, in large part because Medford was ready to take on a larger, if still supporting, role.

Finding those kinds of replacements this summer might prove a bit trickier. Baylor's 2016 class has one top-100 player, small forward Mark Vital, whose 6-foot-6 size and athleticism in the frontcourt make him a worthy stylistic successor to Prince and Gathers. Whether he'll be ready to take on a major role right away is up for debate. There is also Miami transfer Manu Lecomte, whose perimeter shooting should provide an immediate boost. Junior college transfer Nuni Omot adds some depth up front.

Really, though, Baylor's replacements will need to come from within. That starts with 6-foot-9 forward Johnathan Motley, who, if not quite the hyper-intimidating rebound beast Gathers was, is nonetheless a very effective creator of second chances on the offensive end. Drew will need much more than offensive boards and blocked shots this time around; fortunately, Motley has the offensive skill set to become a weapon in his own right. King McClure, 2015's top freshman recruit, was efficient in limited usage as a freshman and, with more touches, is a super-promising sophomore breakout candidate. Guard Al Freeman offers a similar brand of solid play as Medford, and Ishmail Wainwright is a versatile, multi-positional wing.

In other words, most of the "new" players Drew will put on the floor this season aren't new at all. They will simply be asked to do more. It's a good place to start, and if it works -- and if the Bears can improve their soft defense, which ranked eighth in the Big 12 in points allowed per possession, while sustaining the second-chance-derived offense that served them so well in recent seasons -- there's every reason to believe they will be back in the NCAA tournament.

Whether the Bears earn first-round favorite status -- whether they will once again face the prospect of an early upset and the crazy questions that follow it -- is a far murkier proposition.

For Baylor, 2016-17 looks like a reset. Almost like what happens after you go up and grab the ball off the rim when it comes off, and then you grab it with two hands. What's the word we're thinking of?