Background
As a college in NCAA Division III, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) does not award athletic scholarships. While known for its high quality of faculty and research, it is small by comparison with other colleges, with just 2,200 total students and fewer than 900 undergraduates (the NCAA generally restricts athletic eligibility to undergraduates). The school has a modest annual athletic budget of $1.1 million. It is therefore at a concerted disadvantage in college sports, being more academically minded than most colleges. Peter Roby, director of Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society, said "It is a tribute to their unwillingness to compromise their standards that they have endured for as long as they have". The basketball team was a product of what one writer described as "perhaps the worst college basketball program ever."
The Caltech men's basketball team, the Beavers, compete in the NCAA Division III and the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Since their previous victory in 1985, the Beavers had not won a conference game in 21 years—a 259-game losing streak (the streak ended at 310 games when the team won a conference game against Occidental on February 22, 2011). The team had not won an NCAA Division III game for 11 years, and had not won any game—league or non-league—for 60 games.
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