Q: With a 46-45 win over Occidental, the men’s basketball team at what Division III research institution just snapped its 310-game losing streak in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play?
A: The California Institute of Technology — better-known as Caltech — just earned its first conference win since January 1985. Obviously, the Pasadena university has other priorities than basketball — Ryan Elmquist, who made the winning free throw, is graduating with a computer science degree and has accepted a job as a software engineer for Google — but any situation where a losing streak becomes older than any of the players on the team is one where even players with no hope of playing in the NBA start to need a win every once in a while.
Q: The “MeloDrama” finally ended last Monday, when Denver traded Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Shelden Williams, Renaldo Balkman and Anthony Carter to New York for Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton and Timofey Mozgov. As part of the trade, the Knicks and Timberwolves agreed to swap Anthony Randolph and Corey Brewer. Denver’s later acquisition of Kosta Koufos from Minnesota brings the number of foreign-born players involved in the trade to four: Koufos is Greek, Gallinari is Italian, and Mozgov is Russian… but who is the fourth foreign-born player?
A: Anthony Randolph, raised in California, Arkansas and Texas, was actually born in West Germany — both of his parents served in the military.