Hawks
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IT’S a record no club wants to hold, but Wollongong basketball fans don’t need to worry about it for at least another couple of months.
That is, of course, the longest losing streak in NBL history.
The Hawks have now fallen to 11 consecutive losses after opening their 2014-15 season with a 92-83 victory over Townsville at home.
They have endured losing margins of 32 points (Townsville), 29 points (Sydney), 21 points (Adelaide) and 19 points (Perth), mixed with a small handful of narrow defeats.
The 11-game losing streak is the worst in the club’s 35-year history, surpassing the 2010-11 outfit with nine straight.
The 1997 Hawks team is still the only one to finish with the wooden spoon, recording just seven wins from 30 games to finish last.
The current outfit is on track to become the second team to take home the unwanted accolade.
The question is being asked - how long can the losing streak continue?
Will the club win another game this season? Or will fans have to wait until 2015-16 to sing the song?
Gordie McLeod’s men have already completed some unwanted history but it could be worse.
They could still enter the record books as the NBL’s worst ever team.
That can’t happen until Saturday, February 7 at the earliest, when Wollongong travel to Melbourne for the round 18 clash at Margaret Court Arena.
The record is currently held by the Geelong Supercats.
Formerly the Geelong Cats up until 1987, the club had enjoyed relative success during four years in the Victorian Basketball Association and played in the NBL grand final in their inaugural season in 1982.
The Cats/Supercats continued to be successful in the NBL until falling off the wagon in 1988.
It was one of the most remarkable falls from grace in sporting history, as Geelong lost all 24 appearances during 1988 to crash to the bottom of the competition.
The club lasted eight more years in the NBL and has been a part of the Australian Basketball Association since 1996.
As Wollongong sits on 11 consecutive losses, the club needs to lose its next 13 games to draw level with the Supercats and its next 14 to surpass the ugly figure.
And with 16 games left in the season there’s plenty of time for the Hawks to rewrite history - albeit not the history they want to make.
Still, they have a long way to go before they can be considered among some of the world’s worst performers.
The California Institute of Technology (CIT) will perhaps never be beaten for worst losing streak.
The division three college basketball team recorded 207 defeats on the trot between 1997 and 2007.
But when they did break the hoodoo they did it in spectacular fashion, beating Bard College 81-52 on January 13, 2007.
CIT’s coach was recorded after the drought-breaking win as saying ‘‘everyone outmatches us in size, speed and athletic ability. Everyone’’.
No wonder they couldn’t win a game, then.
Even in the NBA at the moment the Philadelphia 76ers are struggling to break a 26-game losing streak and are 0-13 this season already.
In January this year the Sydney Thunder finally broke a three-year, 19-game losing run.
In every sport there are winners and there are losers.
British galloper Quixall Crossett enjoyed an 11-year racing career during the 80s and 90s, during which she had 103 starts for zero wins, two seconds and six thirds.
She returned a measly 8500 pounds for connections and was benchmarked a lowly 16 when she finally retired to the paddock.
It’s a Black Caviar career in reverse.
So don’t worry Hawks fans, it may look bleak at the moment but it could be a lot worse.
Just cross your fingers and hope for a win before the February 7 trip to Melbourne.
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Noteable losing streaks
Athlete/team - # consecutive losses
California Institute of Technology (college basketball) - 207
Quixall Crossett (horse racing) - 103
Geelong Supercats (NBL) - 24
Sydney Thunder (BBL T20) - 19
Wollongong Hawks (NBL) - 11*