Arizona, Ucla Take Opposite Paths In Top 25

In the second poll of the regular season, two Pac-10 teams passed each other like ships in the night, Arizona jumping from 19th to fourth, UCLA falling from fourth to 23rd.

The questions started coming fast and furious about biggest jumps and falls in the AP rankings and some research into the six-plus seasons of the 1990s has revealed both were among the largest moves of the current decade.

On the plus side, Arizona’s 15-place leap after beating Arkansas, Michigan and Georgetown on the way to winning the Preseason NIT was the second-biggest of the nine jumps of 10 or more places in the 90s.

The biggest was Kansas’ jump from being unranked to No. 4 (for argument’s sake a leap of 22 places) after it won the 1989 Preseason NIT. The Jayhawks won at No. 2 LSU then beat No. 1 UNLV and No. 25 St. John’s at Madison Square Garden to win the tournament that opened the 1989-90 season.

UCLA’s fall of 19 places (the Bruins fell out of the rankings this week) was the largest of the seven drops of 10 or more spots in the 1990s. The defending national champions fell to 23rd after losing to Santa Clara and Vanderbilt around a win over Wisconsin at the Maui Invitational.

The second-biggest drop of the period was an 18-place fall by Arizona in the 1989-90 season. The Wildcats dropped from second to 20th after losing road games to Oregon and Oregon State early in the season.

Here’s some hope for the current UCLA team. That Arizona team came back to finish 25-7 and reach the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Tune time

For the past few years “Monday Night Football” has had its own theme song, an upbeat country-rock tune by Hank Williams Jr. Not to be outdone, this weekend’s season debut of college basketball on ABC will also have its own upbeat music to open things up.

Travis Tritt composed “Whoop It Up on the Weekend” and it will be used as the opening music to all the college hoops on ABC this season.

The best line of the short composition sums up how many college basketball fans feel most of the time: “So don’t you knock on my door, don’t you ring my phone. ‘Cause I won’t be disturbed while the ballgame’s on.”

Staying together

Arizona State extended the contract of coach Bill Frieder by two years, meaning he will lead the Sun Devils through at least the 1999-2000 season. When asked at a news conference what the extension means, Frieder gave an answer that was truly Friederesque.

“What does it mean? I guess that it means we are stuck with each other for the next five years.”

Unwelcome mat

Philadelphia Textile set the Division II record for consecutive home victories this season with No. 80 then had the streak snapped by West Chester in an 88-85 overtime loss on Nov. 27. Textile has won 118 of its last 120 home games, both losses coming to West Chester.

The Division II record for a home winning streak had been 79 games by Denver from 1980-85. The Division I mark is 129 games by Kentucky from 1943-55 and in Division III it’s North Park, which won 62 straight from 1984-88.

Welcome to the big time

It’s hard to imagine any freshman has ever had a start to a career like Colorado’s Chauncey Billups.

The 6-foot-3 guard started slowly with 14 points in the opener against Cal Santa Barbara then had 31 against Northwestern Louisiana. Now comes the good stuff.

Against Tennessee State, the native of Denver just missed a triple double with 19 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. He didn’t wait long to get one though as he registered the first triple double in school history with 24 points, 11 assists and 11 rebounds against George Mason.

In his fifth game he scored 33 points against Colorado State, leaving him with averages of 24 points, 7.4 rebounds and 7.2 assists for his brief career.

Ring a Belarus?

Four natives of Belarus, one of the former Soviet republics, are playing for George Washington.

Seven-foot-1 sophomore Alexander Koul was the Atlantic 10 rookie of the year last season and is averaging 17 points and 10 rebounds this season. Freshman Yegor Mechtcherlakov cracked the starting lineup and is averaging 5.0 points and 6.7 rebounds. Sophomore Andrei Sviridov and freshman Andrei Krivonos are reserves for the Colonials.

Too much pub

Before Stephon Marbury ever played a game for Georgia Tech, Yellow Jackets coach Bobby Cremins was bemoaning the high level of expectation placed on his prize point guard.

“Marbury’s very good, (but) the expectations are a joke,” Cremins said. “I think in the long term he’ll be able to live up to the expectations, but the short term, I don’t think anybody can. It’d be like me having to win every game, and I would hate to have that expectation under me. Unless I had five superstars.”

How’s Marbury measuring up? Through six games, he’s averaging 18 points, 5.7 assists, 3.7 turnovers and 2.8 steals. He scored 26 against Michigan and was named to the all-tourney team for the Preseason NIT.

“He’s going to have a lot of distractions,” teammate Drew Barry said. “I hope he plays well. If not, there will be a lot of pressure - people saying he’s a flop. But I know he’s going to do well.”

Quotable

Maryland coach Gary Williams on early season polls: “As a coach, you don’t really care. It’s nice to be ranked. But I know that ranking is like fool’s gold. It doesn’t mean anything.”