Six Still Unbeaten in Conference Play

Six teams still have a chance to do what only three could last season -- finish with a perfect conference record.

In 2002-03, Kentucky in the Southeastern Conference, Penn in the Ivy League and Weber State in the Big Sky went unbeaten in league play.

Through Thursday’s games, six schools -- including overall unbeatens Stanford and Saint Joseph’s -- still had an “0” on the right-hand side.

In addition to Stanford of the Pacific-10 and Saint Joseph’s of the Atlantic 10, the other teams that have yet to lose a league game are: Southern Illinois in the Missouri Valley, Austin Peay of the Ohio Valley, East Tennessee State of the Southern and Gonzaga of the West Coast Conference.

Four schools didn’t win a conference game last season: Columbia in the Ivy, Chicago State in the Mid-Continent, Tennessee State in the Ohio Valley and Army in the Patriot League.

Through Thursday’s games, five schools had yet to win in conference play: Texas A&M; in the Big 12, Cleveland State in the Horizon League, Navy in the Patriot, The Citadel in the Southern and Florida International in the Sun Belt.

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Even as a youngster on the playground, T.J. Cummings took a lot of grief for being the son of college and NBA star Terry Cummings.

“It’s something that I had to conquer pretty much from grade school playing at recess,” he said. “At certain times, people expected me to be the same kind of player as him.”

Now a senior forward at UCLA, the younger Cummings has finally escaped his father’s shadow.

He was averaging 12.5 points and 6.6 rebounds and was shooting 82 percent from the free-throw line going into this week’s games.

He needed 58 points for 1,000 in his career.

“I’m really happy for the fact that I’ve started to become my own player,” he said.

Cummings pays tribute to his father by wearing No. 43, a reverse of Terry’s old No. 34 jersey.

Terry played at DePaul and then was the NBA’s rookie of the year in 1983 with the old San Diego Clippers.

T.J. wasn’t always interested in basketball. He was a good high school football player in San Antonio. Terry came to one of his son’s games while nursing a torn knee ligament. T.J. was playing special teams, caught the kickoff and ran for a touchdown.

“He ran the whole sideline with me. He had these crutches, so you can only imagine,” T.J. said, laughing at the memory.

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The College of Charleston tied a school record for fewest points allowed in last weekend’s 59-39 victory over The Citadel.

It was the fourth time Charleston gave up only 39 points -- and three of those games were against The Citadel, the Cougars’ crosstown rival.

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When Florida dropped out of the Top 25 this week, it ended the Gators’ run of being ranked in 94 consecutive polls, a streak that dated to Feb. 8, 1999.

The longest current streak belongs to Duke, which had been ranked in 143 consecutive polls, a run that started with the preseason Top 25 in 1996-97.

Kansas is second with 70 straight polls, followed by: Kentucky (56), Arizona (50), Pittsburgh (38), Texas (33), Wake Forest (28), Stanford (22), Wisconsin (18) and Connecticut (16).

The record for consecutive poll appearances is 221 by UCLA.

The Bruins’ run started with the preseason poll of 1966-67 and ended Jan. 8, 1980, a span that included eight national championships.

To make UCLA’s run even more impressive, the Bruins were ranked No. 1 for 106 of those 221 polls.

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Texas Tech Coach Bob Knight was his usual candid self when responding this week to NCAA president Myles Brand’s assertion that “college sports is not a business.”

“If it isn’t a business, then General Motors is a charity,” Knight said during the Big 12 coaches’ weekly teleconference.

Knight and several other Big 12 coaches countered Brand’s comment by pointing out the multibillion-dollar contract the NCAA has with CBS to broadcast its men’s basketball tournament, as well as pressures that coaches face year after year to win.

“College sports has turned into one of the biggest businesses in the whole sports industry,” Knight said. “Sports just doesn’t provide entertainment. It provides thousands and thousands of jobs. Those salaries have to be paid for. It takes people who are extremely good business people to run a college athletic program.”

Brand, who fired Knight in September 2000 when he was president of Indiana University, made the comment last week at an ethics conference after calling for a task force to re-examine NCAA recruiting rules.

“College sports is not a business,” Brand said. “It’s about educating young men and women in the field and in the classroom.”

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No jokes about New Jersey Division I basketball, please. All seven of the Division I schools in the Garden State were playing to at least a .600 winning percentage through Thursday.

Seton Hall led the way at 16-7 and was followed by Rutgers (15-8); Princeton (13-7); Monmouth (15-9); Saint Peter’s (14-9); Fairleigh Dickinson (14-9); and Rider (15-10).

Monmouth should receive a state chamber of commerce award since the Hawks played all six schools, compiling a 2-4 record.