It's time for a conference call.
Eleven college basketball teams have survived into late December unbeaten - Alabama, Butler, Clemson, Connecticut, Creighton, Duke, Georgetown, Illinois, Pittsburgh, St. Joseph's and Wake Forest - but nobody expects any of them to make it through the rigors of conference play unscathed.
Here's a look at the landscape in selected leagues:
Atlantic Coast
Top team: Duke. The rather untested Blue Devils - sorry, the UCLA game doesn't count - figure to get better. And they're already No. 1 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll after Arizona's stumble without Luke Walton against Louisiana State. Get to know freshmen J.J. Redick, Shavlik Randolph and Shelden Williams.
Intriguing team: North Carolina - the team that went 8-20 last season - bears watching as freshmen Rashad McCants, Raymond Felton and Sean May navigate their first ACC season.
Top team: Pittsburgh. The Panthers are poised to spend some time at No. 1 during a season when no team is likely to hang onto the spot for too long. Point guard Brandin Knight leads five starters back from the Top 10 team that was upset by Kent State in the Sweet 16 last season.
Intriguing team: Notre Dame. That Irish sweep of Maryland, Marquette and Texas announced that Notre Dame basketball matters again.
Big Ten
Top team: Is it Indiana, coming off a trip to the Final Four, with its only loss so far to Kentucky after coach Mike Davis boiled over? Or is it Illinois, with freshman point guard Dee Brown helping Brian Cook and the rest of the Illini blow out North Carolina and Missouri?
Intriguing team: Michigan State. Losses to Villanova and Oklahoma State raised doubts, but winning at Kentucky suggests big things for this team.
Top team: Oklahoma. We'll soon find out how good the Sooners are. Oklahoma, whose only loss has been to Alabama, will play Top 25 teams Mississippi State and Michigan State in the next nine days.
Intriguing team: Texas Tech. Andre Emmett, the high-scoring star of Bob Knight's Red Raiders, should challenge the Kansas and Oklahoma stars for Big 12 Player of the Year.
Top team: Marquette. Dwyane Wade plays like a pro and has scored 20 points or more in six of eight games.
Intriguing team: Louisville. After his team won its past four games by an average of almost 33 points, coach Rick Pitino scheduled two-a-day practices - even on Christmas Day - heading into tomorrow's showdown with Kentucky.
Missouri Valley
Top team: Creighton. The Bluejays are really the only MVC team to talk about - and the only team to beat Notre Dame.
Top team: It's wide-open now that Wyoming's Marcus Bailey is out for the season because of a knee injury. Brigham Young, Colorado State, Nevada-Las Vegas, Utah and Wyoming all have hopes.
Intriguing team: San Diego State. By March, the mix of players that originally signed elsewhere might be a real threat.
Pacific-10
Top team: Arizona. The Wildcats were gutsy without Luke Walton, edging Texas on big plays by Jason Gardner, then coming from 15 down in the second half against Louisiana State before losing by one.
Arizona can't weather the Pac-10 without Walton, but he is expected back from his ankle injury soon.
Intriguing team: Stanford. Who can figure out the Cardinal? Stanford beat Xavier and Florida, then lost to North Carolina, Montana and Richmond - the last two at home.
Southeastern
Top team: Alabama. Former UCLA assistant Mark Gottfried's team ascended to No. 1 in the Associated Press poll for the first time in school history after Arizona's loss to LSU.
Intriguing teams: LSU, Georgia. LSU knocked Arizona from the unbeatens and has a find in former Junior College Player of the Year Jaime Lloreda.
Georgia is on the rise now that center Steve Thomas has returned from academic ineligibility.
Western Athletic
Top team: Tulsa. Since the start of the 1999-2000 season, Tulsa has won 90 games - second in the nation behind Duke's 100.
Intriguing team: Hawaii has been receiving votes in the ESPN/USA Today poll.
West Coast
Top team: Gonzaga has been puzzling. The Bulldogs have lost to Indiana, Kentucky and Georgia, needed overtime to defeat Washington and Washington State and had to come from behind against Eastern Washington.
Intriguing team: Gonzaga - despite San Diego State's early bid with an upset of UCLA that no longer looks so remarkable.
Robyn Norwood is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing Newspaper.