Going into tonight's Atlantic 10 Conference championship, Rutgers is riding the crest of a seven-game winning streak. Last season, that was the total number of games won by the Scarlet Knights under Coach Craig Littlepage.

Littlepage was ousted shortly after the season ended last year in a 104-73 whitewash at the hands of Rhode Island in the A-10 quarterfinals. The Rutgers Division of Intercollegiate Athletics then lured Bob Wenzel from his assistant coaching job with the New Jersey Nets, and he became head coach at RU on April 12.

The team Wenzel inherited had gone 7-22 in 1987-88 and had finished last in the A-10. He faced a major rebuilding job, but had talented underclassmen, notably Tom Savage and Craig Carter, now sophomores. Under Wenzel, named 1988-89 Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year last week, the Knights (17-12) have played far beyond anyone's expectations, including their own. A win tonight at the Louis Brown Athletic Center translates to an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament.

"We try to teach guys to dream big dreams, and maybe something good will happen," Wenzel said. "It's certainly been a joyous ride for us, winning 10 out of 12 (games) and seven in-a-row. It's been very similar to the time I was an assistant at Duke when we went to the Final Four, a lot of the same kinds of emotions."

"I knew we were going to get better," Carter said, "but I thought we would finish about fifth in the conference. I think the turning point of the season came after we lost to Massachusetts on the road."

Massachusetts, which finished eighth in the league, destroyed the Knights, 105-89, a few days after Notre Dame stomped them by 22. Those back-to-back blowout losses led the team to do a little soul-searching, and it discovered character.

Three days later, on Feb. 2, the Knights negated a Penn State double-digit lead in the second half and defeated the Lions in overtime, 87-83. Two weeks later the teams met at University Park, where the Lions prevailed by 28.

"We played them very well at home," said Emory Ward, Rutgers' lone starting senior. "We went up there and they played really good defense. It's always tough playing on someone else's home court."

What Rutgers did to the A-10 after that horrible loss at PSU was not pretty. Just as the Lions went on a tear following their 100-67 loss to West Virginia, the Knights started to roll. Their current win streak began five nights later with a 15-point win over hapless George Washington.

In the tournament quarterfinals, the third-seeded Knights routed No. 6-seed St. Bonaventure, 100-67. Savage led the team with 20 points, while Lee Perry (brother of the NBA's Tim, last year'd A-10 Player of the Year) added 13 points and seven boards off the bench.

Monday night the squad drew No. 2 Temple in front of what should have been a Philadelphia crowd. But Rutgers bussed thousands of fans to the Palestra, where Knights fans outnumbered Owls fans three to one.

The game was close from start to finish, but two Carter free throws with 13 seconds sealed Temple's fate. Carter's 16 points and seven assists led Rutgers to its second win over Temple in 11 days, setting up tonight's 9:30 clash with the Lions.

Rutgers features a strong starting five in Carter, Savage, Ward, Rick Dadika and Anthony Duckett. After them, however, the Knights are thin. Perry is erratic, and his play against St. Bonaventure was the exception rather than the rule.

They are exceptional outside shooters -- Dadika and Savage connect on over 40 percent of their 3-point attempts -- and Ward and Duckett patrol the paint, combining for 20 points and 11 rebounds per game. Carter, who averaged more than 30 points a game in high school, is used more for his playmaking but can be deadly if left unguarded.

Defense will be the key for the Knights to win tonight. Penn State shot 54.9 percent from the floor against West Virginia, a team whose defense had been holding opponents under 40 percent shooting. Rutgers, while quicker than the Lions in most matchups, is much smaller in the front court.

"We never have good matchups," Wenzel said. "When you have a 6-6 center (Duckett), you're never going to have good matchups. I think inside defense is an important thing for us in this game, and how we handle (Penn State's frontcourt players)."

Even with 9,000-plus screaming fans, defeating the visiting Lions will not be an easy task. Rutgers advanced to the finals in a hard-fought game against an alleged superior team, while Penn State blew out a nationally ranked team. The drubbing the Knights took at Rec Hall is still fresh in their minds.

"We lost, but now we're looking for revenge," Ward said. "Penn State's a very good team. It's not going to be ice cream and cake; it's going to be a very tough game."