Eddie Jordan played on a Rutgers basketball team that won 31 games in a row before it went to the 1976 Final Four. Jordan now has coached a pair of Rutgers basketball teams to 30 straight losses in the Big Ten.
I don't know what record this has established, but it has to be something: 31 in a row to the good, and then 30 to the bad, four decades apart at the same school.
We also can add this historical note: The Gophers were the first 1-13 team ever to go into a game justifiably overconfident.
The Gophers had received an incredible outpouring of accolades for the upset of No. 6 Maryland last week. Coach Richard Pitino's athletes seemed to take the court Tuesday night with the attitude that Rutgers would simply roll over and play comatose.
It took a half, but the athletes were right.
The Gophers played down to Rutgers' level in the first half, and that is a long way down. The Scarlet Knights entered at No. 272 in Ratings Percentage Index. The 79 schools rated below this collection should sue the person who invented the RPI for defamation.
The Gophers led 32-31 at halftime, and then Rutgers really hit its stride, streaking to an 83-61 loss.
The 22-point margin exceeded the Knights' average margin of defeat in the conference by 8/10ths of a point.