Totally Random: New Jersey Institute’s steely determination
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‘They got a name for the winners of the world.
‘’I want a name when I Iose.
‘’They call Alabama the Crimson Tide.
‘’Call me Deacon Blues.’’
Steely Dan might have to rewrite those lyrics after Wake Forest was voted No. 1 this week in college basketball ...
Oh, what? Never mind. The Demon Deacons lost on Wednesday night at home to Virginia Tech and play No. 2 Duke in their next game.
Deacon Blues indeed.
But Wake Forest’s loss wasn’t the upset of the night.
That came when the New Jersey Institute of Technology broke its 51-game NCAA losing streak with a 61-51 victory over Bryant (No Relation to Kobe) University.
That was the top news story Wednesday on New Jersey’s Institute of Science & Technology website.
The rest of the headlines concerned, well, science and technology.
Perhaps someone there can explain this from the same Steely Dan song:
‘This is the day
‘of the expanding man.’’
Trivia Time
Who has the longest losing streak in NCAA college basketball history?
Winners, at last
Dallas Academy’s high school girls’ basketball team lost a Jan. 13 game, 100-0, to the Covenant School.
The athletic director of the school, which works with students with learning problems, counted it in the win column.
‘My girls never quit,’’ Jeremy Civello told the Dallas Morning News. ‘They played as hard as they could to the very end. They played with all their hearts at 70-nothing, 80-nothing and 100-nothing. I was really proud of them.’’
A week later, Civello found out that the game might actually count as a victory.
According to the Associated Press, officials from the Covenant School, a Dallas Christian academy, have notified the Texas Assn. of Private and Parochial Schools that they want to forfeit.
‘Victory without honor is a great loss,’’ the school said.
It will be Dallas Academy’s only victory of the season. Its headmaster has canceled a Jan. 30 game against Covenant and has withdrawn from the league for the rest of the season.
Trivia Answer
NJIT’s 51-game streak would be a Division I record. But the Highlanders are in only their third season in the top division, not long enough to have their records count. Sacramento State holds the official Division I record at 34.
And finally
The NCAA’s all-division record is 117 held by Division III Rutgers-Camden. Caltech, also Division III, actually lost 207 consecutive games against NCAA opponents before snapping the streak with an 81-52 victory over Bard College on Jan. 6, 2007. But only 59 of the losses counted toward the record because of a 2004 over Life College of San Dimas, a non-NCAA team.
-- Randy Harvey