Antonio Gates knows things have changed. He knows things will be different this winter.

There will be no more opportunities for the Golden Flashes to slide cooly into a basketball game and not have anyone notice their arrival. Maybe Kent State could've done that a year ago, but that changes when a basketball team advances to within a game of the Final Four.

After victories over Oklahoma State, Alabama and Pittsburgh back in March, Kent State has become a big name. OK, maybe not a big name like Duke or Maryland or Michigan State, but big for a school that sometimes gets lumped in with the five other Mid-American Conference members located in Ohio.

	Antonio Gates will have a new cast of starters around him this season.

It was a tournament run that made Kent State the newest mid-major of the moment. Now, with less than a month until college basketball teams begin practicing for the 2002-03 season, the question is how long can the Golden Flashes hold their place on the hoops hot list?

Can they build on the trip to the Elite Eight like Gonzaga -- the model of how the non-football playing basketball program should be built -- did? (Hey Mark Few, notice we didn't say mid-major?)

Will the Golden Flashes become that consistent program that's in the mix for a near-annual NCAA Tournament berth like a school such as Creighton?

Or will Kent State end up with little more than 15 minutes of fame and become a sort-of Dexy's Midnight Runners of college basketball. After all, it isn't easy for the little guys to sustain big things in college basketball. Remember Eastern Michigan and Earl Boykins? Remember Rhode Island's run to the 1998 regional finals? Or Southwest Missouri State's trip to the Sweet 16 a year later?

And what have you heard of them since?

"It's easy when you have no pressure and you're not picked to win," said Gates, the only returning starter from a Kent State team that went 30-6 a year ago and won 21 in a row at one point. "It was hard to be the two-time defending (MAC) champion. It's going to be that much harder to be the three-time defending champ."

Much like when Gonzaga had to replace coach Dan Monson and guards Quintin Hall and Matt Santangelo in order to continue its run, Kent State also has work to do.

Coach Stan Heath left for Arkansas after just one season in charge of the Golden Flashes. Guards Trevor Huffman (16.0 ppg) and Andrew Mitchell (15.3) -- Kent State's leaders -- have graduated along with guard Demetric Shaw and forward Eric Thomas.

"This year we're going to have depend on working hard more than talent," said Gates, who averaged 16 points per game and is the only returning player who averaged more than five points per game.

It took Kent State a while to get used to Gary Waters' departure to Rutgers and Heath's arrival from Michigan State. Remember, the Golden Flashes started 4-4 under Heath. Now the Golden Flashes have to make another adjustment -- this time from Heath to Jim Christian. The difference is that Christian was on the staff a year ago and was promoted when Heath left.

"That might be the most beneficial thing," Gates said. "He knows our personnel. He knows who can shoot and who can't and he knows what people have to work on."

Christian doesn't expect the Golden Flashes to look all that different than in the past. Kent State is still going to use the defensive philosophies that Waters established, and add in the emphasis on rebounding that Heath brought with him from Michigan State. While Christian still has to figure out who's going to start for his team besides Gates and center Nate Gerwig and he has to find a point guard, he can't wait to get going. There's enthusiasm in his voice. While some of that is a byproduct of Christian's first head coaching job, some of it is also the result of a guy who realizes how great it is to be a basketball coach.

In the mid-'90s, Christian found himself working for and with some eventual head coaches. He worked with current Marquette head coach Tom Crean when the two were assistants for Ralph Willard at Western Kentucky. He worked for N.C. State coach Herb Sendek at Miami (Ohio). But after three seasons at Pittsburgh, Christian spent two seasons out of the game after Ralph Willard was fired in 1999. Instead of coaching, Christian worked for Octagon Sports Marketing and Management in McLean, Va., as a college basketball talent evaluator.

	“	I've told our guys coming back that it's a great opportunity to take ownership of this program. The seniors laid the foundation, but we always say tradtion never graduates. ”
		— Jim Christian, Kent State head coach

And he missed coaching.

When Heath was hired at Kent State, both Crean and Michigan State coach Tom Izzo put in a good word for Christian.

"I'll be forever indebted to Stan," Christian said.

Back in college basketball a year ago, Christian was very excited. When the Golden Flashes lost at Youngstown State early last season, everyone on the bus was in a dismal mood, except Christian. He couldn't wait to get back in the gym the next day and practice again.

"As important as the games are, it's not as important as the impact on the kids," Christian said. "I embraced every day. I was so happy. When it's been removed from you, you appreciate every aspect of it."

Christian still can't believe the timing of all of this, and how he's gone from being out of the game to the head coach of an Elite Eight team in just over a year.

"It's a funny profession," Christian said. "There's no form on where and when and how you become a head coach. I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. I never in my wildest dreams believed it would happen like this. Now that I've gotten the opportunity, it's up to me to make the most of it."

And to do so means try to replace key parts of a Kent State team that went an amazing 17-1 in the tough MAC -- a league in which Ball State coach Tim Buckley once said "we eat our own."

"I've told our guys coming back that it's a great opportunity to take ownership of this program," Christian said. "The seniors laid the foundation, but we always say tradition never graduates.

"Everyone who played in the frontcourt is back. Nate (Gerwig) and hopefully the success John Edwards had in the NCAA tournament will catapult him into this year. But we don't return a player on the perimeter who played more than 15 minutes in a game. It's the reverse of last year."

One thing the Golden Flashes will have is depth -- Christian calls his team Noah's Arc.

"We have Antonio Gates and he's clearly our best player," Christian said. "After that we have 12 other guys -- two at every position. We're going to have great competition in practice."

And the new coach realizes that's going to be necessary.

"People are going to come out every night and we're going to take their best punch," Christian said. "People in our league are excited for our success we had in the postseason, but it makes them want to knock us of even more."

The secret is out. It'll soon be time to see if the Golden Flashes are more than a flash in NCAA's pan.

Jeff Shelman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune (www.startribune.com) is a regular contributor to ESPN.com