With conference play heating up, it's time to take a look at which women's college basketball teams performed the best against other leagues.

The Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference have tended to be neck-and-neck in that race and they are again this season. But neither has the best non-conference record. That distinction goes to the Big 12 -- barely.

Big 12 teams are 109-27 against non-conference opponents, a winning percentage of .801. That's just ahead of the ACC (.800, 76-19) and the SEC (.797, 114-29).

While it's true that non-conference schedules vary widely in strength, a league's non-conference record is still a good indicator of its depth.

The Big 12 was helped by Baylor's 11-0 non-conference record. Kansas State and Texas A&M are 10-1 outside the league, Iowa State 9-1, Texas 12-2 and Texas Tech 9-2.

Five Big 12 teams are in the Top 25, headed by Iowa State at No. 7. Texas Tech is 11th, Texas 14th, Oklahoma 17th and Baylor 23rd.

All nine ACC teams are above .500 for the season. Duke is 12-0 outside the league and North Carolina State is 9-1. Clemson and Maryland are 9-2 and Florida State and Georgia Tech are 8-2.

The Big 12 and ACC will go head-to-head twice on Jan. 21, when Iowa State plays at North Carolina State and Oklahoma plays at North Carolina. Iowa State's only loss this season was at Duke on Dec. 30.

SEC teams have some gaudy non-conference records, led by Tennessee and Alabama at 12-1. Florida and Mississippi are 11-1 and Auburn and Georgia are 12-2. Vanderbilt is 11-2 outside the league.

The Big East, which began the weekend with the nation's only unbeaten Division I teams (Connecticut and Notre Dame) has a 97-48 non-conference record, a winning percentage of .669.

Non-conference winning percentages for other leagues include the Mountain West at .654 (66-36), Big Ten at .644 (76-42), Sun Belt at .619 (78-48), Conference USA at .575 (77-57), the Western Athletic Conference at .549 (56-46) and the Missouri Valley at .488 (41-43).

Staley's timing
Talk about timing. Dawn Staley has lost four games in her first season as Temple's coach and two of them produced milestone victories for the other coach.

Villanova's Harry Perretta collected his 400th victory in a 60-55 win over Temple on Dec. 2. On Thursday night, North Carolina State's Kay Yow became the fifth Division I women's coach with 600 victories when the Wolfpack beat Temple 71-64.

Staley has only herself to blame for the timing of Yow's victory. Yow would have gotten her 600th earlier if Staley, then playing for Virginia, had not led the Cavaliers to 123-120 overtime victory at N.C. State in 1991.

As for reaching 600 herself, don't count on it, Staley said.

"I'm not going to be in the game that long," she said. "That's a lot of basketball. I take my hat off to her. She's given so much to the game and in return, the game has given so much to her."

Buckeye woes
After a 10-0 start, Ohio State is losing players as fast as games.

The Buckeyes (11-4) had more players on the bench in street clothes (seven) than in uniform (six) for a 75-73 loss to Illinois on Thursday. Three of those injured players were sidelined within the past week, two for the rest of the season.

Center LaToya Turner, the Big Ten's freshman of the year last season, is lost with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. Freshman Emily Haynam saw her season ended by a fractured and dislocated finger. Senior Mandy Stanhope missed the Illinois game because of a sprained wrist.

Also during the past week, coach Beth Burns announced that sophomore guard Tanya McClure, out since mid-November with a broken foot, will miss the rest of the season.

Two other players, freshman Caity Matter and senior Courtney Bale, are sidelined by broken legs. Junior Kit Savage is ineligible.

"I'd give my right arm to have a jammed finger or a sprained ankle," Burns said, "just something normal."

Slumping Jayhawks
Kansas has won at least 20 games for 11 straight seasons, but the Jayhawks will have to turn things around quickly to keep that streak going.

A 67-48 loss at Iowa State on Wednesday night was the Jayhawks' fourth straight and left them at 6-7, the first time they have been under .500 in January since 1987.

"It's getting ridiculous," leading scorer Jaclyn Johnson said.

Kansas at least had been scoring well before going to Iowa State. But the Jayhawks had only 20 points at halftime of that game and until Jennifer Jackson hit a jump shot with 16:48 left, Johnson had been the only Kansas player with more than one basket.

The losing streak is the Jayhawks' longest in eight years.

"I'm trying not to think about it," Johnson said "But I'm a fighter. I'm not going to give up."

Ramblin' Ramblers
A 7-6 record might not seem much to brag about, but it's major progress at Loyola, which has lost 20 or more games each of the last six seasons.

A 73-66 victory over Butler in the Ramblers' Mid-Continent Conference opener was their sixth in eight games. They had won five straight before losing two games in Texas the first week of January.

Loyola was 3-23 last season, Mary Helen Walker's first as coach. But returning starters Lauren Sirus and Tracy Hoffman have combined with freshmen Lauren Yops and Jennetria Harden and junior college transfer Ramona Aguado to give Walker hope that things are turning for the better.

"I knew in my heart we could get it done this year," Walker said. "It would be easy now to say we're satisfied. But we don't want to rest on it."

Tired crew
The stat crew must have been as exhausted as the players after Washington's triple overtime victory over Southern California.

The two teams took a combined 148 shots. There were 97 rebounds, 63 turnovers, 55 fouls and 26 steals.

Washington won 91-79, the first triple overtime game in school history.