Phil Mushnick

Phil Mushnick

Bruins unrecognizable without “UCLA Blue” uniforms

It’s clear by now that when we watch TV we’re not supposed to notice those things we can’t possibly miss. Better we focus on those things we can’t see.

Thursday on CBS, playing in the Sweet 16 before a national audience in primetime, UCLA wore dark blue, half-sleeved T-shirts, like a softball team.

And it struck me that, having watched college basketball for nearly 50 years, here, for a moment, I had to figure it out: Which team is UCLA?

There is no more identifiable, famous, glory-synonymous uniform in the history of college basketball than the home-and-aways worn by UCLA. For crying out loud, UCLA’s colors are gold and what the school proudly tags, and in upper case, as “UCLA Blue.”

Those uniforms were worn by Gail Goodrich, Lew Alcindor, Walt Hazzard, Keith Wilkes, Lucius Allen, Bill Walton, Marques Johnson, Lynn Shackelford, Roy Hamilton, KiKi Vandweghe, Kevin Love on and on. They were as tethered to a tradition as are Yankee uniforms.

But Thursday, on center stage, UCLA went with something else from its new-age, adidas, mix-and-match wardrobe. It did not wear the most famous uniforms in the 123-year history of college basketball.

Kevin Love (42) sports his team’s traditional “UCLA Blue” uniform.Getty Images

And not one of the eight CBS/TBS speakers who worked the game — four in the studio, three at courtside and one roving reporter — said a word about it. It was as if we weren’t supposed to have noticed. Or that with colleges having sold their souls and soles, such ugly truths must remain unspoken, so as not to insult the compromised and co-opted.

It’s now so absurd that CBS’s score graphic, as a matter of clarification, identified UCLA in a field of powdery UCLA Blue. But what UCLA wore was far closer to black.

There had to be a reason for this, and not a good one. Someone at or near the top — the president of UCLA? — had to have approved this, had to have agreed to abandon one of team sports’ greatest traditions.

Several years ago, after UCLA added a black uniform, coach Steve Lavin candidly admitted it was to appeal to recruits. His was a tacit admission that standards have become so diminished and kids so vulnerable, impressionable and misguided that scholarships are awarded to those who would choose their college based on uniform colors.

Among those say-nothings who worked Thursday’s telecast was Reggie Miller. For four years, starting in 1983, he famously played basketball for UCLA wearing the famous UCLA Blue and gold.

I had to figure out which team was UCLA, geez.

Francesa changes views for chat with Calhoun

Yes, yes, we know. Baylor could have headed home Tuesday, right after Mike Francesa began to expertly tout the Bears as the far better team, one that will beat Wisconsin. Thursday, it was over early. Wisconsin, up by as many as 21, won by 17.

Wednesday, Francesa held another pal-to-pal with now ex-UConn coach Jim Calhoun. Naturally, there was no mention of UConn, under Calhoun, having regularly recruited teams that produced more unethical and even criminal achievement than academic success, but he and UConn are hardly alone.

Still, we wondered if “Let’s Be Honest” Mike’s new FOX cable TV audience was aware of a 2012 episode, this time of year. It’s not as if Francesa would tell it, and the tapes likely are missing.

Late in the regular season, he agreed with those who said on his show that UConn doesn’t belong in the NCAA Tournament due to a so-so season and NCAA sanctions for (being caught) cheating. Yep, he totally agreed.

Two weeks later, after UConn was selected to play in Tournament, Francesa told Calhoun, on the air, that those who consider UConn unworthy of selection are fools.

And his new, FOX audience should know: There’s plenty more — and worse — where that came from.

NCAA to NFL: Help us

Rams’ coach Jeff Fisher, better very late than never, is urging the NFL to crack down against all the taunting and assorted prison-yard garbage that now routinely pollutes games played by professionals. He claims the self-evident is true: The NFL is in the throes of an epidemic that leaves football unrecognizable as a sport.

Fisher said even the NCAA has asked the NFL to help dissuade college players from miming and parroting the antisocial behavior of NFLers.

Agreed, and in full. But those NFLers eager to publicly behave like creeps? Nearly all are delivered directly to the NFL from NCAA schools. Where were their NCAA coaches to dissuade such conduct?


OK, so NCAA players unionize as paid employees of their college. So then they become ineligible for full, six-year scholarships that include food and housing, and ineligible for federal Pell Grants — money that doesn’t have to be repaid. Then there’s the small matter of income taxes and union dues. Now what?

MSG hockey studio host Bill Pidto was all charged up to show a great save by Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard on Monday. “You’ve gotta see the replay to appreciate this,” he said during his “150” seconds NHL highlights segment. We had to take his word for it. Howard’s save was largely hidden by a graphic identifying the “150” segment.

Univision-owned WADO-1280 AM now has a multi-year deal to carry Yankees games in Spanish.

Eric Wedge, whose modern MLB managerial weaknesses included his inability to suffer players who didn’t run to first base, has been added to ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight” studio panel. Light it up, Skip! Wedge could narrate a fresh “Dogging It” segment, every show.

Yep, 25 years later the NFL’s still working hard to smooth the bumps in its instant-replay rule.

Sweet recollections of “making it” — in his case, appearances on “Kiner’s Korner” — from ESPN’s Doug Glanville during Wednesday’s Nationals-Mets. Glanville, who played center for four MLB teams, watched Kiner’s Korner while growing up in Teaneck, N.J.

Funny, how Florida fans erupted, demanding a whistle after UCLA’s Bryce Alford mistimed a dribble, returning the ball to the floor from shoulder-high. Yet, we now routinely watch players carry-dribble — especially to make quick changes in direction and to drive — from the ball’s southern hemisphere. But that violation sailed, long ago.

Reader Fred Rosen, Florida, claims the faddish but silly, needless use of “moving forward” or “going forward,” when referencing the future, can be useful if applied to tug of war matches, “where moving forward is a bad thing.” Rosen’s sideline tug-of-war reporter: “Coach, how do you prevent your team from moving forward, moving forward?”