Sports

Kentucky best and worst of NCAA basketball

Despite the system-sanctioned academic fraudulence, the Kentucky basketball team, for the past three weeks, took us to school. It taught us a valuable lesson, or at least a refresher, on what Jeremy Lin and the temporarily short-on-superstars Knicks taught us a month earlier:

Basketball doesn’t have to be as repetitive, as minimalist and as driven by individual stars as we see nearly every time we tune to an NBA game. Kentucky, loaded with talent — young talent — nevertheless played superb, high-energy team ball, a pleasure to watch, so good on the eyes and the lost-in-transit better senses.

Rebound and go; hit the open man on the run; use your sneakers for more than a fashion statement; visionary, on-the-run lob passes, not the redundant NBA-style lobs to those waving for the ball while posting up.

This Kentucky team may have been fronted by a university, nothing else related to college, but it knew how to play winning, attractive, five-man ball, none of that “Gotta get it into your star’s hands” plan played to the beat of a funeral drum and sold by simplistic media voices.

Sure, John Calipari carries the worst stench of big-time Machiavellian college sports. College … as if. Yet he can only do and only be paid what colleges allow, what school presidents — fundraisers — allow, want, need.

Of all the things Calipari was called this time around, none was more preposterous than what his pal Mike “Let’s Be Honest” Francesa twice expertly puffed, this week: Calipari is a great recruiter, but “not a good bench coach.”

If he’s not a good bench coach, then he’s the best practice coach in the game. Teams, especially those starting freshmen, don’t play as Kentucky did by accident or as a matter of kismet. Jimmy Dolan has been a good recruiter; look what he has done for the Knicks the last 15 years.

Meanwhile, for all the times Francesa has had Calipari on his show, I can’t recall him even hinting to “Coach Cal” he’s not a good bench coach. Perhaps next time Francesa can set it up with, “People have said you’re not a good bench coach.”

If Calipari was hired to make those wearing the jerseys that indicate an association with the University of Kentucky the best team they could be, then, like it or not, for better or worse, he fulfilled the terms of his engagement.

Masters of good golf TV

Masters, Day 1: Good things come to those who wait. CBS (on ESPN) went right to live golf yesterday, no extended, dramatized tribute to the Masters as special, no attempt to encourage viewers to watch what they already had tuned in to watch.

Fabulous mini-feature on the Champions’ Locker Room. Arnold Palmer shared his with Byron Nelson, Jack Nicklaus shares his with first Masters champ Horton Smith (“Kinda neat,” said Nicklaus).

Vijay Singh said “Not too many people know” he shares his with Sam Snead, and Tiger Woods shares with 1956 champ Jackie Burke.

“It’s kinda cool to see him there, now and again,” Woods said.

* The Mets’ Opener: Why post essential graphics when you suffer eye strain to read them? SNY’s new count, outs and runners-on graphics were so tiny they caused eye strain. And now the count is indicated by red (strikes) and yellow (balls) dots. Why not just post the count: 2-1, 3-2? Why shrink, then complicate matters?

SNY’s Gary Cohen labeled Johan Santana “a good hitting pitcher,” adding that his lifetime batting average is .174. Huh?

WFAN’s Joe Benigno, yesterday from Citi Field, was treated by Mets general manager Sandy Alderson as he should: Like a dopey fan who makes more spit and drool than sense.

Wednesday, Benigno screamed murder because the papers didn’t put the Rangers clinching the Eastern Conference on the back pages. Evan Roberts then reminded him that they just led their show with the Knicks.

* Received many scolds from readers for writing “I” instead of “me” here on Monday. They’re correct, it was inexcusably bad grammar. But where were they when me needed them?

Lee Spikes the race card — this time

Still trying to figure how Knicks mascot Spike Lee wasn’t arrested for his ready, fire, aim! vigilante terrorism in the Trayvon Martin case.

Lee’s Ox-Bow Incident-like targeting of the wrong man for a race-based lynching is the kind of shameful, lawless American history Lee cites as perpetrated by whites against blacks.

If the particulars were reversed, had a white man targeted an innocent black man for revenge in the alleged murder of a white, Lee would be screaming — and duly — for his arrest.

* Knowing how Giorgio Chinaglia demanded the ball, reader Glenn Stone can be excused for his initial take, this week, when he read the headline, “Chinaglia Passes.”

For all Chinaglia’s arrogance, he often blended it with grace. After dining in a Dallas steakhouse with three writers who covered the 1978 Cosmos, the bill arrived. As the writers prepared to pay, Chinaglia was confused. Why would we pay his bill? We told him, “That’s the way it works in our business.”

Chinaglia was appalled. “How much they pay you?” he demanded to know of each writer (I made $17,700, that year). When he was told, he threw back his head and laughed. Then he grabbed the bill and paid it.

* Lou Goldstein, who entertained and frustrated five decades of Catskills resorts guests as “Mr. Simon Says,” died Monday at 90. Goldstein once tried — and likely succeeded — to eliminate the entire crowd at halftime of an NBA game.

Speaking of Simon Says, it seems as if nearly every member of Baylor’s women’s 40-0 team majors in “recreation.” Don’t know if that’s suspicious or just pathetically honest.

* Unimaginable NBC will retain NHL analyst Mike Milbury after another season of pro-brutality, cavemanlike cracks and insults, the latest implying Sidney Crosby is soft, as if his concussions are all in his head, as opposed to what doctors detect in it.

The Knicks blew a big lead in Indiana on Tuesday, with J.R. Smith being tossed for throwing Leandro Barbosa to the floor. MSG reporter Tina Cervasio interviewed Barbosa afterward. Did she ask about the hassle with Smith? Nope.