Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times
The University of Tennessee is the top-ranked team in men’s college basketball. The Volunteers have won 16 consecutive games, the longest active winning streak in the country — but only because Hofstra, on Long Island, got upset by Northeastern on Saturday.
That is not a misprint. From late November until the second day of February, the Hofstra Pride did not lose a game, and almost no one noticed. When a program like Duke or Kentucky wins 16 games in a row, the team is featured on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” every night and makes the cover of Sports Illustrated.