Through Thursday's games, eight schools have already exceeded lastseason's victory total.
Doing that isn't all good news because it means last season wasn'texactly a resounding success. But to have done it by now means therehas to be more of a positive attitude entering conference play.
Northwestern, Howard, Arkansas-Little Rock, Jacksonville, FloridaAtlantic, Loyola Marymount and Rice have all managed to win at leastone more game in 2000-01 than they did in 1999-00.
Then there's San Diego State.
The Aztecs' 84-70 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi onThursday night pushed their record to 9-3. Nine was the win total forthe past two seasons. Four in 1998-99 and five last season, SteveFisher's first as coach at San Diego State.
To show the difference Fisher, who led Michigan to the nationalchampionship in 1989 and runner-up finishes in 1992 and '93, has madeat San Diego State, all you have to do is check the numbers.
The Aztecs tied a school record with eight wins by Jan. 1, and ittook them 48 games to record eight wins prior to this season. Therehave been five repeat opponents in Fisher's short tenure and thedifference from last season to this against those team has been plus-24.4 points. Included in that was last week's 87-66 victory overOklahoma State, the Cowboys' worst nonconference loss in the EddieSutton era.
There's no guarantee Mountain West Conference play will keep theAztecs' winning percentage at .750, but since 1985, the school hashad one season with a better than .500 record.
There's no record listed in the book for points scored in anovertime period by a player, but Bryant Matthews of Virginia Tech canstake a claim with what he did last Saturday.
The freshman forward scored 12 of his career-high 21 points in thesecond overtime of the Hokies' 84-75 victory over High Point. He was8 for 9 from the free throw line in the second overtime.
The teams were tied at 63 at the end of regulation at 73 after thefirst five-minute overtime.
While Matthews's 12 points may or may not be a record, the Hokies'21 points in the second overtime were not.
The Division I record for points in an overtime is 26 by Vermontin a 100-89 victory over Hartford on Jan. 24, 1998. . . .
Nine schools have teams ranked in the top 25 in both men's andwomen's basketball.
Three of them have teams ranked in the top 10 in both: Duke (No. 3men, No. 5 women); Tennessee (6, 2) and Connecticut (10, 1).
Michigan State, however, has a pretty impressive double sportclaim. The Spartans are not only No. 1 in the men's basketball poll,they are also No. 1 in the hockey rankings.
By the way, the only other school ranked in both men's basketballand hockey is Wisconsin which is 12th in basketball and 11th inhockey . . .
A look at the top 25 shows Michigan State, Stanford, Wake Forestand Georgetown were still unbeaten entering the weekend. Two teams,however, are still sporting a '0' on the right-hand side but theystill haven't cracked the rankings: Boston College and Baylor.
Both played rather soft nonconference schedules as they reboundedfrom poor seasons, Boston College going 11-19 last season, whileBaylor was 14-15.
