This Streak Ends, but It’s Only on Paper

Which college basketball team boasted the longest active streak in the Associated Press rankings before the preseason poll for the 1991-92 season?

The temptation is to think of a traditional power such as Indiana, Duke, North Carolina, UCLA or Kentucky.

The answer, however, is Syracuse, which had been ranked in every AP weekly basketball poll since March 5, 1984.

The eight-year run ended with this week’s preseason rankings, which found Syracuse 21 points behind 25th-ranked Louisville. The longest active streak now belongs to Duke, which has been in the rankings since the fifth week of the 1986-87 season.

“It’s too bad we didn’t get a chance to play our way out of it,” Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim said of the poll.

This is the third season in which the AP has ranked the top 25 teams; previously, the poll ranked only the top 20.

Magic craze: The announcement by Magic Johnson that he has been infected by the virus that causes AIDS has touched off a frenzy of memorabilia buying. Anything that carries Magic’s mark has been selling.

“There’s always people who want to capitalize on another’s misfortune,” said Bill Mastro, a sports consultant for Sotheby’s, a New York City auction house. “It’s just the nature of things. It’s a business.”

Mark Friedland, a collector in Aspen, Colo., said his stock of Magic items has been virtually wiped out. He is selling game uniforms for between $2,500 and $4,000.

“People called us immediately,” he said. “I sold almost everything that same afternoon--uniforms, team basketballs. We sold at the price that then existed. We could have easily sold it at double or more, but we feel it’s unconscionable to capitalize on his misfortune.”

Said Bill Love, owner of a card shop in Charleston, W.Va.: “I haven’t heard anybody say, ‘He’s my hero. I’m going to buy it because I feel sorry for him.’ They’re buying it because they think it’s going to go up in value.”

Trivia time: Which driver most recently won the Indianapolis 500 in consecutive years? Riles rails: The New York Knicks are 4-0 at home and 0-3 on the road, and Coach Pat Riley isn’t pleased with that.

“This team has to learn that you win at home for postseason positioning, but you gain respect by winning on the road . . . ,” the former Laker coach said.

“It’s about effort and enthusiasm and efficiency. If you have enthusiasm and you don’t have the effort, you’re never going to become efficient. And if you’re enthusiastic with a good effort and you’re not efficient, then you’re wasting the first two.”

Chop block: Officials at Midland Lutheran College in Omaha, Neb., have asked students to stop doing the tomahawk chop and war chant at Warrior athletic events, and are considering a new nickname.

Midland football player Scott Allgood, who is part Apache and Navajo, said he and many of his teammates are disappointed.

“I loved doing it and hearing it,” Allgood said. “I don’t see where it’s embarrassing the Indians. I mean, it’s not embarrassing me.”

Trivia answer: Al Unser, in 1970 and ’71.

Quotebook: General Manager Lee Thomas of the Philadelphia Phillies, on his interest in free agent Bobby Bonilla: “I told Bobby’s representatives that if he were interested in coming to Philadelphia, we were interested in having him. I also told him we’d name the city after him.”