LORMAN &8212; If Clif Douglass cans just one 3-pointer in each of the next two ball games, he&8217;ll have accomplished something unique this early in the season.

He&8217;ll have a triple in each time zone with Alcorn&8217;s 2005-06 season barely a month into the books.

Not that it&8217;ll matter much to anyone around the country. Douglass has risen among the national leaders in 3-point shooting to 15th while coming off the bench for a small-time, below-radar college.

Even the biggest national experts wouldn&8217;t know Clif Douglass from Cliff Huxtable. But that&8217;s OK &8212; he&8217;ll just keep doing what he&8217;s been doing while the Braves continue their pre-conference trek across the country.

Sunday they&8217;ll play at Southern Cal. Then it&8217;s at New Mexico on Tuesday.

&8220;I&8217;m just doing the same thing,&8221; said Douglass, a junior college transfer out of Shelton (Ala.) State. &8220;I don&8217;t really feel any difference on the other goals.&8221;

Yet the fact that he&8217;ll tour the country hitting 3-pointers is just part of the team&8217;s tour around the country while playing bigger schools, matching up against better competition, getting a nice paycheck for playing and getting better in the process.

Douglass has hit 20 of 38 shots from behind the 3-point arc. And for a team that needed a threat from the perimeter not named Delvin Thompson, that&8217;s huge.

&8220;He&8217;s just hitting some shots for us,&8221; ASU head coach Samuel West said. &8220;He&8217;s showing a lot of leadership and a lot of ability. He&8217;s coming off the bench and giving us a spark. He&8217;s one of the hottest 3-point shooters in the country. I really believe that, and he&8217;s a great kid.&8221;

On Sunday he&8217;ll have a grand stage to see if he can continue his success from the outside when the Braves meet up with the Trojans of the Pac-10 for the first time in school history. It&8217;s also a chance to venture from the routine and get out to the West Coast and play USC before stopping in Albuquerque for another game as the road swing continues.

For the first time in four seasons, the Braves won&8217;t play at home prior to SWAC play. They won&8217;t open the season at the Whitney Complex until Jan. 7 against Jackson State.

&8220;We&8217;ve been traveling the whole year,&8221; said Thompson, the team&8217;s leading scorer at 13.8 a game. &8220;We&8217;ve made long trips to different states, but we&8217;ve got to go up there and play. Traveling will wear your body down, especially if you&8217;re in an airplane. But we&8217;ve just got to finish a game and win. We&8217;ve been in every game we&8217;ve played. We&8217;ve just got to finish a game.&8221;

The Braves have played at South Florida, Florida State, Arizona State, Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin and UAB. You can go ahead and hand them their frequent-flyer miles right now, but it wouldn&8217;t do any good.

They&8217;re 0-6 right now. And it wouldn&8217;t have made it any easier if the game was in Philadelphia or on the Lorman campus &8212; the losses have hurt. Especially the game at Sam Houston, a 51-50 defeat.

&8220;Stephen F. Austin was the worst, but Sam Houston was a good one,&8221; West said. &8220;The last three games we haven&8217;t played well in the first half. The second half we&8217;ve averaged 40 points. That&8217;s it &8212; turnovers at the wrong time and bad shots at the wrong time. And not smart fouls. I don&8217;t want to say dumb fouls, but fouls at the wrong time.&8221;

It all goes back to playing team basketball, which Thompson noted is much more evident so far this season than last despite the turnover figure. That was evident in the loss to a good Sam Houston team, and they&8217;ll try to put that together Sunday and Tuesday when they&8217;ll have a chance to pull an upset and put Alcorn on the map.

The Trojans are in their first season under head coach Tim Floyd, a former UNO coach who also spent time coaching the Chicago Bulls.

&8220;It never rains in sunny southern California &8212; that&8217;s why we&8217;re going,&8221; West joked.

Yet for Thompson, it&8217;s also a chance to get back home. He was born in Los Angeles before his family moved to Fayette, and he still has family there who is expected to attend the game.