SDSU Looking to Start Another Winning Streak : College Basketball: After blowout loss to UAB, tournament host SDSU hopes to get healthy against Niagara. Clemson plays Villanova in opening game.

Picked apart like a Christmas turkey last Friday by the University of Alabama Birmingham, the San Diego State basketball team gingerly returns to the San Diego Sports Arena tonight wondering whatever happened to its five-game winning streak.

SDSU (6-4) plays Niagara (1-7) at 9 in the second game of the Texaco Star tournament. The first game, at 6:30, features representatives of two of the best basketball conferences in the country--Villanova (6-5, Big East) against Clemson (6-1, Atlantic Coast).

The Aztecs have reached the championship of their annual December tournament each of the past three seasons, and have one title (1987) to show for it. The Aztecs are in position to make it four in a row this year--Niagara shouldn’t be a major roadblock.

But then again, who knows? On Dec. 16, the Aztecs were riding their longest winning streak--five games--since 1984-1985 and things were coming together. But that evening, they were flat in a loss at UC Irvine, and then they went to the UAB Tournament and played two of their worst games of the season.

“Basketball is a game played in spurts,” SDSU Coach Jim Brandenburg said. “If you plot it on a graph, you are going to have highs and lows, and you just hope the graph shows improvement. You’re going to hit the lows, but you hope when you plot the whole thing there’s a nice increase.”

SDSU is in need of an increase in several areas--particularly shooting percentage. The Aztecs made just 44.6% of their shots during a 67-53 victory over Southwest Texas Thursday, and they hit a hard-to-believe 30% in their 91-46 loss to UAB the next night. The 45-point beating tied the record for the most lopsided loss in SDSU history.

For the season, SDSU is shooting 43.4%.

“We need to start playing with enthusiasm,” Brandenburg said. “We need to play with intelligence. It’s crunch time, time for us to get going. We have to play with a great level of intensity.”

As for the rest of the tournament, here are six points of interest, in no particular order:

1. The Name’s the Thing: If college basketball junkies across the country have a difficult time keeping track of SDSU’s tournament, it’s no wonder. The name changes nearly as much as Zsa Zsa Gabor trades in husbands. It was known as the Cabrillo tournament from its inception in 1976 through 1985, when it became the Holiday Bowl. Last year, it was the McDonald’s. Now, voila , the Texaco Star. Whew.

2. Ghosts of Christmas Past: Villanova has been here before. Coach Rollie Massimino’s team won the tournament in 1982, defeating SDSU in the championship game, 63-57. The tournament has also been won by such high-profile teams as Iowa, Indiana, DePaul, Virginia, Memphis State and Tennessee. Georgetown and Patrick Ewing were in the 1980 tournament but were beaten by eventual champion DePaul in the first round, 72-67.

3. The ACC vs. Big East Challenge: A special made-for-TV week in the scheduling in early December pitted ACC and Big East teams against each other. Not much was settled--the conferences battled to a 4-4 draw. Tonight’s Villanova-Clemson game is the first this season between the two schools.

4. Speaking of television . . .: Thursday night’s championship will be broadcast live nationally on ESPN.

5. The Coaches: The highest-profile guy in town is Massimino, who is in his 17th season at Villanova. It was in 1984-85 that Massimino guided Villanova to a stunning upset against Georgetown and Ewing in the NCAA championship game. The other end of the spectrum features Niagara coach Jack Armstrong who, at 26, is the youngest Division I head coach in the nation. Cliff Ellis, meanwhile, is in his sixth season at Clemson and Brandenburg is in his third at SDSU.

6. The Rematch Possibilities--SDSU vs. Villanova or Michael Best vs. Clemson: SDSU will play either Villanova or Clemson Thursday. Either matchup should prove interesting. The Aztecs opened the season with a 66-58 loss to Villanova in the Maui Classic. Center Marty Dow led the Aztecs in that game with 15 points. Best had eight rebounds. If the Aztecs play Clemson, it will be a special occasion for Best. He was a two-year letterman at Clemson before transferring to SDSU.