The Buzzer

Wyoming's first-year coach, Steve McClain, an assistant at TCU
from 1994 to '98, brought Billy Tubbs's up-tempo style with him
to Laramie. Through Sunday the Cowboys (11-4) were averaging 82.4
points a game, compared with 63.8 last season, and last Thursday
knocked off Tubbs's 20th-ranked Horned Frogs 96-93....

The most underachieving conference is the Atlantic 10, which in
the preseason had four teams in the Top 25 but now has none.
Yes, the league's teams have played admirably difficult
nonconference schedules (second toughest of any league,
according to the latest RPI rankings), but through Sunday,
Atlantic 10 players were shooting a lousy 41.6%....

Iona, which finished 1998 at 4-7, is 6-0 in 1999. Over the last
four seasons the Gaels have been a force in January, with a 32-1
record in the year's first month....

Among the schools that James Madison, Cleveland State's leading
scorer (15.3 points per game), considered signing with was,
well, James Madison. "I canceled my visit there after I visited
Cleveland State," says Madison, a 6'2" junior from Port Angeles,
Wash. "I wanted to be known for my game, not my name." ...

In an effort to eliminate human error, timekeeping has gone high
tech in the Pac-10 and in Division II's Central Intercollegiate
Athletic Association. A device developed by referee Mike
Costablie allows officials to start and stop the clock with
special transmitters on their belts that are connected to their
whistles. When any official blows his whistle, the clock stops.

--B.J. Schecter