As more than 300 teams prepare to start a season that will look nothing like any before it, the conversation isn’t so much about who will be cutting down the nets at the end of March Madness as much as whether anyone will cut down the nets at all.

If some team, any team, does climb a ladder in Indianapolis — and the top candidates include the usuals, with No. 1 Gonzaga, Duke, Kentucky and Kansas among them — then consider the season a success.

Anything short of that, and nothing less than the future of college sports could hang in the balance.

This is the new world created by a COVID-19 crisis that is mushrooming to more than 190,000 new cases a day across America just as college basketball gets set to tip off its season Wednesday.

Teams will play truncated schedules — many cut from 31 to 27 or 25 games — after truncated preseasons. It’s a shrunken, ever-shifting and still perilous grid laid out with the health of players and coaches in the forefront of everyone’s mind, but with an unspoken belief that the show really does need to go on.

Here’s a look at the Big Four:

Duke

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski sees plenty of depth and balance on his latest roster. He sounds like he intends to use it, too.

The ninth-ranked Blue Devils have just five returning letter winners from last year and must replace their top three scorers, with two of those being players who each won honors as player of the year in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Sophomores Matthew Hurt and Wendell Moore Jr. are the top returnees and they’re joined by another top-flight recruiting class in what has become an annual roster overhaul for the program in the one-and-done era.

“We don’t have as much separation from 1 to 11,” said Krzyzewski, who is entering his 41st season at Duke.

Scoring will have to come from a six-man freshman class ranked No. 3 nationally by 247sports, headlined by 6-9 forward Jalen Johnson (ranked 13th nationally), 6-1 point guard Jeremy Roach (23rd) and 6-2 combo guard DJ Steward (26th).

The Blue Devils were to open against Gardner-Webb on Wednesday but COVID-19 has sidelined the Bulldogs. Early marquee matchups are against No. 13 Michigan State in the Champions Classic (Dec. 1) and No. 8 Illinois in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge (Dec. 8).

Duke opens a 20-game ACC schedule at Notre Dame on Dec. 16.

Carolina

Roy Williams couldn’t wait to get back on the practice court with No. 16 North Carolina after the worst season of his Hall of Fame career. His players noticed, too, in the urgency Williams had in pouncing on any missed detail.

It was the only way he knew how to turn last year’s debacle – his only losing season – into the foundation for a leap back to a more Carolina-like season.

“I’m hungry,” Williams said. “I did not enjoy that. It’s not something that was fun. So I’m hopeful that the hunger and motivation, our players will feel it the same way.

“You can’t just snap your fingers and change things. But you can focus on this year and try to do everything to the best of your ability every single possession.”

The Tar Heels (14-19) struggled amid a talent drain from the previous season as well as a wave of injuries on the way to finishing at the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

They’re hoping a deep front line led by senior Garrison Brooks and an influx of talent from 247sports’ No. 2-ranked recruiting class have this year’s group back to being a league contender. UNC is picked to finish fourth in the ACC, while Brooks is the preseason pick as league player of the year.

The 6-foot-10 Brooks is the top returning scorer (16.8) and rebounder (8.5), while 6-10 sophomore Armando Bacot (9.6 points, 8.2 rebounds) returns after having an inconsistent debut season.

The Tar Heels open against College of Charleston on Nov. 25, then head to the instate mountains to play in the relocated Maui Invitational in Asheville for a three-games-in-three-days tournament.

In December, UNC visits No. 5 Iowa in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge and faces No. 23 Ohio State in the CBS Sports Classic in Cleveland before opening a 20-game league schedule at rival N.C. State on Dec. 22.

N.C. State

North Carolina State made the NCAA Tournament in Kevin Keatts’ first season, missed it in his second and saw it canceled in his third due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Keatts is hoping the returning experience on this year’s roster — the top two players are fifth-year seniors — along with enough depth to put the Wolfpack on course to get back to the tournament again.

“I like our potential,” Keatts said. “I love our guys, I love the fact that we’ve got an older group on the back end. And then we’ve got some younger guys.”

Picked to finish eighth in the 15-team Atlantic Coast Conference race, the Wolfpack lost two scorers C.J. Bryce and Markell Johnson from last year’s 20-win team.

But N.C. State returns the 6-foot-10 D.J. Funderburk and 6-5 wing Devon Daniels to provide a pair of experienced scoring options.

N.C. State opens the season by hosting the Wolfpack Invitational — featuring Charleston Southern, Eastern Kentucky and North Florida — on Wednesday and Friday at Reynolds Coliseum, the program’s former on-campus home.

N.C. State will take part in “Bubbleville” — featuring 40 teams playing 45 games in tournaments in a modified bubble at the Mohegan Sun resort casino — with a Dec. 5 game against Connecticut in the Huskies’ home state. There’s also a game at No. 25 Michigan (Dec. 9) in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge before visiting Louisville to open a 20-game ACC schedule on Dec. 16.

Wake Forest

Steve Forbes inherited a big challenge at Wake Forest.

He left East Tennessee State after a 30-win season that included a sweep of the Southern Conference regular-season and tournament titles shortly before the coronavirus pandemic canceled the NCAA Tournament. He arrived in Winston-Salem in the only coaching change amid the pandemic in the Power Five conferences, then started work with players scattered around the country and in-person recruiting on hold.

It’s hardly the way any coach would want to start the work to turn around a program with two winning seasons and one NCAA Tournament bid since 2010, yet the 55-year-old Forbes is undeterred.

“It’s a very different time, nothing that we’ve ever experienced in our life,” he said. “Maybe you could go back and say I’m the only fool that took a job during the pandemic. … But I took a great job, and I was very lucky to get it.”

The Demon Deacons lost senior top scorer Brandon Childress from last year’s 13-18 team, along with big man Olivier Sarr (transferred to Kentucky), guard Chaundee Brown (transferred to Michigan) and guard Andrien White (senior).

Junior forward Isaiah Mucius is the top returning scorer at 7.3 points. But the Demon Deacons brought in five transfers, including graduates Ian DuBose from Houston Baptist, Jonah Antonio from UNLV and Jalen Johnson from Tennessee.

Wake Forest opens against Delaware State on Wednesday, the first of three straight days of games in the Wake Forest Classic that also includes Alabama State and Longwood.

Teams are permitted to play 27 regular-season games, but Wake Forest has only 23.

The Demon Deacons don’t play in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge this year, meaning they currently don’t have a game for 2½ weeks until hosting fourth-ranked Virginia on Dec. 16 to open their 20-game ACC schedule.