With college basketball action heating up let’s take a look at a few notes and highlights around the nation.

Of course when you talk about college basketball nowadays, you have to start with Duke, which is currently ranked No. 7 in the nation.

The Blue Devils are putting several streaks on the line in their Atlantic Coast Conference opener at Virginia tonight, including a 52-game winning streak against unranked opponents, an 11-game ACC road winning streak, and an overall 9-game winning streak.

Duke has dominated ACC regular season play over the last three seasons, topping it with an unprecedented 16-0 record with an average winning margin of 24.3 points in 1998-99. Duke has won 22 straight ACC regular season games and owns a 41-3 record in the last 44 such contests. The three losses were all top Top 10 ranked ACC foes

Duke has won 35 straight games against an unranked ACC opponent during the regular season. The last such loss came on Feb. 7, 1996 at Georgia Tech, 73-71 in overtime.

Now on to some SEC stuff.

When Mississippi State plays at Ole Miss tonight, it will be an all-star reunion-of sorts. Ole Miss head coach Rod Barnes, Rebel senior forward Marcus Hicks (Jackson, Tenn.) and Mississippi State junior forward Tang Hamilton were all members of the Southeastern Conference All-Stars that traveled to Japan last August.

— LSU’s 14-1 start is the best since posting the same mark in the 1941-42 season. LSU game Saturday at Vanderbilt is the Tigers’ first appearance on ESPN since Jan. 1998.

— Dan Langhi enters the week ranked 27th on Vanderbilt’s all-time scoring list with 1,111 career points. Sam Howard hit five three-pointers in a row vs. Florida and ended up with a personal-best 7-of-8 performance from beyond the arc.

— With its overtime win over Mississippi State last Saturday, Alabama is 4-1 in its last five overtime games. The Crimson Tide play at Georgia Saturday in a game reuniting the (Georgia head coach Jim Harrick and the protege (Alabama head coach Mark Gottfried). Gottfried was an assistant under Harrick at UCLA for seven seasons, including the Bruins, 1995 NCAA championship season.

— Arkansas won its SEC opener for the seventh time in 10 tries since entering the league in 1992 with a win over Ole Miss.

— Auburn has lost 14 straight games to Kentucky, its opponent on Tuesday, including five straight at home. Auburn,s last win over Kentucky came in a 74-70 in 1990, Rick Pitino,s first season as UK,s head coach. Tuesday’s gamewill be the 90th meeting between the two schools but only the seventh time (and third straight) that the Tigers are ranked higher than the Wildcats.

Auburn now has a 25-game home winning streak after defeating Kentucky Tuesday night.

— Florida’s 12-2 record ties the best mark in school history after 14 games.

— The 1999-2000 season marks the 68th season of conference play in the SEC.

Since the 1932-33 season, the SEC has had 12 difference schools win the SEC title, including former conference member Georgia Tech. Kentucky leads the way with 39 titles (40 including its vacated 1988 title) followed by LSU and Tennessee with seven, Alabama with six, Mississippi State with five, and Vanderbilt with three. Defending champion Auburn and Arkansas have two each while Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and former member Georgia Tech have one each.

Joey Martin is sports editor of The Democrat. He can be reached at (601) 445-3632 or by e-mail at joey.martin@natchezdemocrat.com.