Gameday: Cal Poly // Going streaking

Everyone’s favorite foil is back in town! Yup, it’s the Cal Poly Mustangs, who own a well-chronicled, head-scratching five-game winning streak on Hawaii.

UH (15-7, 4-4 Big West) and Poly (8-13, 4-4) are both coming off of losses. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. tonight at the Stan Sheriff.

The Rainbow Warriors have been pretty good at bouncing back; they’ve dropped consecutive games only twice this year. Keep your eye on Keith Shamburger’s shooting — he’s 4-for-24 in the last three games but has stayed aggressive looking for his shot.

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Cal Poly is one of the more bizarre one-sided series in UH history at the moment, but by no means does it have the staying power (yet) of some of the more frustrating series in program history.

To help put the Poly losses in perspective, I present Hawaii’s complete men’s hoops list of the longest skids against single opponents, as researched semi-painstakingly from the team media guide.

Here it is. You might notice some recurring names (cough, Utah). And USC owns by far the longest mark, with the vast majority of those games happening in the ’60s.

I made the cutoff for the streaks at six in a row;  there’s too many to count below that.

17: USC (1959-1999)

11: BYU (1984-1988); Santa Clara (1952-1960); Washington (1937-1966)

10: UTEP (1984-1988); Utah (1984-1989)

9: UNLV (1974-1980); New Mexico (1965-1973); Utah (1954-1958); Utah (1994-1999)

8: California (1950-1966); Nevada (2006-2010); Oregon State (1959-1970); Utah State (2009-now)

7: Air Force (1985-1988); Colorado State (1987-1990); Illinois (1979-now); Oklahoma City (1964-1969); Oregon State (1974-1979); Seattle (1956-1965); UTEP (1990-1993); USC (1954-1957); Utah (1964-1981); Utah (1991-1993); Wyoming (1986-1989)

6: BYU (1977-1981); Fresno State (1998-2000); Idaho (1953-1987); Louisiana Tech (2004-2007); Loyola Marymount (1959-1972); New Mexico (1982-1985); New Mexico State (2009-2011); San Diego (1977-now); Santa Clara (1961-1968); Wyoming (1980-1982)

Look for a future installment on the program’s longest winning streaks (’cause that’s only fair, right?)

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Tonight’s game is billed as “Superhero Night,” so dig up whatever Halloween costumes you can find if you’re feeling festive. There should be some costumed guests on the court ala “Star Wars Night” last year.

Here was Negus Webster-Chan as “Spider Chan” at practice this week.

This might be the most involved theme night of the year. Jamie Smith and the UH marketing department did a fantastic job with the aforementioned  Star Wars Night, so we’ll see if they can pull off the encore with this.

UH also did a promotional video for tonight’s theme. Spider Chan was joined by “Spear Man.”

You can watch the video here.

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Tough 62-60 defeat for the Rainbow Wahine basketball team against leader Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo today. That’s two narrow defeats to the team that’s fast becoming their rival. Poly guard Ariana Elegado just keeps making plays with games on the line — you have to give her credit.

UH (11-10, 5-4) will sure be glad to be back home from that four-game (1-3) road trip.