John Bazemore / AP file

Georgia Tech's Jarrett Jack battles Marist's Pierre Monagan for a rebound. The Yellow Jackets, ranked No. 4, are one of the few unbeaten teams in the country.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL NOTEBOOK

updated 10:40 p.m. ET Dec. 24, 2003

It’s only happened 12 times and not since 1976.

Though the odds of a Division I team going unbeaten are remote, it’s still possible.

Indiana went 32-0 in 1975-76. Since then, Indiana State’s 33-1 record in 1978-79 (the Sycamores and Larry Bird lost to Michigan State and Magic Johnson in the national championship game) and UNLV’s 34-1 mark in 1990-91 (the Runnin’ Rebels lost to Duke in the national semifinals) are the closest anyone’s come.

Half of the unbeatens are from two conferences. The Atlantic Coast Conference has Georgia Tech, Virginia and Wake Forest, while the Southeastern Conference has Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Mississippi State, and LSU.

On the other end of the won-loss record, nine of the 326 Division I teams had yet to win a game through Thursday.

One of them is Prairie View, the last school to go winless in a season. The Aggies, who have lost their first five this season, went 0-28 in 1991-92, still the record for most losses in a season.

Pulling rank
This week’s Associated Press poll is top heavy with Atlantic Coast Conference teams, with Duke, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and North Carolina ranked third, fourth, eighth and 10th.

The Big 12 is next with four (No. 7 Oklahoma, No. 11 Missouri, No. 12 Kansas, No. 18 Texas). The Big East, Conference USA and Big Ten each have three ranked teams.

Shooting pitcher
Brian Cardwell went from throwing deuces to hitting treys.

The 6-foot-10 Cardwell spent the last four seasons as a pitcher in the Toronto Blue Jays organization. Now he’s a freshman with the Tulsa basketball team.

He hit the first two 3-pointers of his career in a 14-1 second-half run in the Golden Hurricanes’ 78-66 victory over New Mexico State last weekend. His third field goal came with his foot on the line and he finished with a season-high 10 points.

Cardwell, 22, originally signed with Tulsa in 1999 after averaging 17.6 points and 11.1 rebounds as a senior at Sapulpa High School.

The Blue Jays took Cardwell in the fourth round of the 1999 draft. He completed his professional baseball career with 10 victories and a 5.34 ERA. He was 1-0 with a 3.60 ERA at Class A Dunedin in the Florida State League last season.

Some Saturdays
There was a lot of talk this preseason about Michigan State’s nonconference schedule. And it was all deserved with games against the likes of Kansas, Duke, Kentucky and Oklahoma, all of which were losses for the Spartans.

Kentucky is in the middle of an impressive stretch of Saturdays that includes the game last weekend against Michigan State, which set an attendance record with over 78,000 at Ford Field in Detroit.

The five straight Saturday specials for No. 2 Kentucky started with UCLA and Michigan State. Next comes Louisville and North Carolina.

Wildcats coach Tubby Smith didn’t have any special speeches planned for his Saturday run.

“Every game is a big game on our schedule,” Smith said. “We let (players) know that from the day they come to Kentucky. They understand that from the day I go into their home to recruit them. We don’t take any games off.”

Scoring cat
Kevin Martin was 11th in the nation in scoring as a freshman and moved up one spot last season. The 6-foot-7 guard from Western Carolina was on top of the latest NCAA scoring list.

The junior averaged 28.0 points through the Catamounts’ first six games, leaving him in front of St. Peter’s sophomore guard Keydren Clark (26.8).

Martin, who averaged 22.1 as a freshman and 22.8 last season, opened his junior year with a 44-point effort against Georgia. He scored 13 straight points for Western Carolina at one point in the second half as the Catamounts cut an 18-point halftime lead to four, but could get no closer.

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