COLLEGE BASKETBALL : Sacramento St. Has Current Losing Streak

Colorado Mines had set the NCAA Division II record for the worst season ever last year when the Orediggers went 0-27. They had lost the last three games of the previous and the first 10 this season, finally snapping the 40-game losing streak this week with a 74-72 victory over St. Francis, Ill.

It was Colorado Mines’ first win since Feb. 14, 1991 and it stopped their losing streak six games before the Division II record held by Olivet from 1959-61 and Southwest State, Minn., from 1971-73.

“How could you not be aware of it?” asked first-year coach Keith Brown, a former assistant at the University of Washington. “We’ve been on the verge; we’ve been playing good basketball and we’ve been very competitive. It was only a matter of time before we came out ahead in a close game.”

The current losing streak in Division I is Sacramento State’s 25-game skid, including the first 13 games of this season.

The all-time Division I mark is 37 straight losses by The Citadel from Jan. 16, 1954 to Dec. 12, 1955.

AN EASY STUMPER for a non-New Yorker is to ask where is Manhattan College? It’s not where most people think it is; it’s in The Bronx.

This year, the Jaspers have been perfect at Manhattan, but winless in Manhattan.

Manhattan is unbeaten in four games at its own Draddy Gymnasium. However, three trips to the island of Manhattan have resulted in three losses--to St. John’s and Rutgers in the ECAC Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden and to Columbia at its Levien Gym.

Fortunately for the Jaspers all remaining games in the city of New York are in their home borough.

REMEMBER CAMPBELL, the team the whole country learned to love when it faced Duke in the opening round of last year’s NCAA tournament? Well things aren’t going quite so well for the Fighting Camels from Buies Creek, N.C. so far this season.

An 87-70 loss to North Carolina-Wilmington was their sixth straight, the longest such streak since Billy Lee took over as coach for the 1985-86 season, and dropped the Fighting Camels to 2-6 overall.

There could still be a shot at another NCAA berth, however, as Campbell has yet to play a Big South Conference game and only two of the league’s 10 members managed a better than .500 record in non-conference play.

LANCE MILLER, James Bryson, Arron Bain and Calvin Byrd must love to hear the silence of a big crowd.

The four players who make up Villanova’s senior class completed a career sweep at the Carrier Dome with the Wildcats’ recent 79-61 victory over Syracuse. They won all four games they played in front of those huge Orange-clad crowds, the longest such streak ever against the Orangemen.

The Wildcat seniors have enjoyed success against Syracuse at home as well, having won two of three games they played against the Orangemen at the Spectrum with one more to go on Feb. 23.

That probably won’t be their final game against Syracuse if history holds true because they played against the Orangemen in the Big East tournament each of the past three seasons with Syracuse winning two of the games.

THE ATLANTIC COAST Conference, Big East and Big Ten each have five teams in the Top 25 and each league also had three more members among the group of other teams receiving votes.

For the morbidly curious, that means North Carolina State was the only ACC team not be recognized by the nationwide panel of voters, while St. John’s and Miami were left out from the Big East and Wisconsin, Northwestern and Penn State from the Big Ten.

GREG GUY, a 6-1 junior transfer from Fresno State, scored 35 points in each of his first two games for Texas Pan American.

A native of Oak Park, Ill., Guy was grilled by the local media for some background after such an impressive debut and was asked about other players from his suburban Chicago high school.

“Ernest Hemingway went to my high school,” Guy said. “They have a lot pictures of him and a little statue. The English Department used him as the basis of some of our work.”

No word on scoring or rebounding averages for Hemingway.

DRAKE COACH Rudy Washington passed the same trophy case on the way to his office every day. He noticed a book in there written by former Bulldogs coach Maury Johns, who led Drake to the 1969 Final Four.

Washington read “Belly-Button Defense” and decided to apply some of the principles from it. The Bulldogs set a school record by forcing 30 turnovers in a 66-43 victory over San Jose State.

“That’s the way we want to play. We have the quickness to be able to come out and apply pressure. The kids really got into and played well. It was Maury John’s belly-button defense revisited.”

BOBBY HURLEY is passing some pretty good passers as the season progresses.

Duke’s premier point guard started his senior season in 14th place on the all-time assist list with 814. Ten games into the season he had 915 and he is now sixth on the all-time list, 24 behind Gary Payton of Oregon State.

The rest of Hurley’s targets with their all-time total: Greg Anthony, Portland and UNLV, 950; Sherman Douglas, Syracuse 960; Keith Jennings, East Tennessee State, 983; and Chris Corchiani, North Carolina State, 1,038.

HAWAII HAS ITS first-ever native starting backcourt. Kalia McGee is a 6-foot-2 sophomore from Honolulu who started with the Rainbows as a walk-on, and Jarinn Akana is a 6-0 junior from the island of Molokai who transferred from BYU Hawaii after serving his two-year church mission in Chile.

There is a third native of the 50th state on the roster, fifth-year senior reserve guard Wendell Navalta, a former walk-on from the Big Island of Hawaii.

The rest of the Rainbows roster comes from eight different states, New Zealand and Brazil.

IF YOU READ the team’s media guides closely enough, you can find out some stuff that you’re not really sure you need to know, but want to pass it on just the same.

North Carolina’s George Lynch, a 6-8, 218-pound forward and one of the better rebounders for his size in the country, weighed 3 pounds at birth. It’s on page 10 under “Interesting Facts.”