No good luck for Rutgers hoops

The definitive highlight for the Rutgers basketball program last season came on Jan. 11, 2015, when the Scarlet Knights knocked off Wisconsin, an eventual Final Four team, by 67-62 in Piscataway to even their record to 2-2 in their inaugural season in the Big Ten.

Alas, that also was the most recent highlight. The Scarlet Knights have gone more than a year without winning a conference game - 20 consecutive defeats. They slipped to 0-5 in the Big Ten on Wednesday after losing at Ohio State, 94-68, a game they actually led at the half.

It hasn't been pretty in former 76ers coach Eddie Jordan's third season at his alma mater. Rutgers has lost its league games by an average of 22.8 points. The worst defeat, 90-56, came at home against Nebraska last Saturday, the day the university honored its 1975-76 team on the 40th anniversary of its NCAA Final Four appearance and was led at point guard by Jordan.

That being said, the Scarlet Knights haven't had much luck. They played their last three games with just six scholarship players available due to injuries. All four of their sidelined players range between 6-foot-6 and 6-11, which has led to some horrific beatings under the boards.

It got so bad at Maryland (an 88-63 defeat) that Terrapins coach Mark Turgeon didn't play any of his starters for more than 25 minutes, leading Jordan to say, "I appreciate Mark understanding where we are and pulling back the hounds a little bit."

Jordan took over the program less than three weeks after Mike Rice was fired following the surfacing of a video showing him verbally berating players and throwing basketballs at them.

"This is a learning year," Jordan told NJ.com. "I hope our fans understand where we are. We're a young team. We can come back with everybody healthy and some new recruits that we are going to get. You bring everybody back, remember these times we got beat up, and hopefully we carry the banner for Rutgers then."

While we're on the subject of former Sixers coaches, can you believe that the last remaining unbeaten team in NCAA Division I is coached by Larry Brown?

Brown is in his fourth season at SMU, which is 16-0 but comes with an asterisk, the fact that it will not be able to play in the NCAA tournament - or the AAC tournament - because of penalties handed down last fall. One punishment was the suspension of Brown, now 75, for the season's first nine games.

The Mustangs currently are playing with seven scholarship players with Keith Frazier, one of their top scorers, away from the team for personal reasons. But they persevere.

"We're all learning how to adjust, but they're a unique group of kids who care about each other," Brown said after his team won at East Carolina. "We know it's not going to get any easier."

SMU comes to the Liacouras Center next Saturday night to take on Temple.

The NCAA has done well by underclassmen with aspirations of a professional career by changing its rules on the NBA draft, giving players a later deadline for deciding whether to stay in the draft or withdraw and return to their team. Interested players now will be allowed to participate in the NBA combine and work out for one NBA team before the deadline, which was moved from early April to May 25.

"We've got to do right by these kids," Kentucky coach John Calipari told the Lousiville Courier-Journal, "and let them get the right information, the real information, from the NBA. Then if they choose to come back, let them come back. "

If there's one thing about West Virginia basketball, it's that the 11th-ranked Mountaineers won't dazzle you with finesse or fancy passing and dribbling. They press and scrap and pressure for 40 minutes, something that top-ranked Kansas found out Tuesday in a 74-63 loss, WVU's first win over a No. 1 team in 33 years. The Mountaineers forced 22 turnovers, held the Jayhawks to a season low for points and outscored their opponent, 33-13, from the free throw line.

"They're great at what they do," Kansas' Perry Ellis said in an Associated Press article. "They were all over the place, and we definitely give them credit."

Everyone who was in the Pavilion at Villanova on New Year's Eve remembers how horrible they felt after watching Xavier guard Edmond Sumner land upside-down in a hard fall on the court. Sumner suffered a concussion and missed the Musketeers' next three games, but he is expected to return Saturday at Marquette. On Thursday's Big East coaches' call, Xavier's Chris Mack said Sumner "has been fully released, and we're excited to welcome him back," but wanted to see how he practiced.

Mack told ESPN several hours later that Sumner "is good to go." Sumner, a 6-6 freshman, was averaging 11 points and three assists.

Senior Markus Kennedy, who played his freshman season at Villanova before transferring to SMU, has been a key contributor to the best-ever start in school history for the Mustangs. The 6-foot-9, 245-pound Philadelphia native, who recently has been coming off the bench, is averaging 8.6 points and 5.2 rebounds and shooting 54 percent from the floor. He posted his second double-double of the season this week against East Carolina, with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

jjuliano@phillynews.com

@joejulesinq