Just when you think that the NCAA gurus have reached a level of silliness that will be difficult to top for a while, they show you what it means to be a champion; they meet that challenge and just get sillier. The NCAA president is Cedric Dempsey and there has been some recent data that shows that Division I football players are graduating at even smaller rates than the meager rates of several years ago. So of course Cedric would have to expect to be asked about that data and ought to have some kind of response ready. So what did he say? He said that the NCAA needs to start to look at what some of the reasons for the decline might be. Yes, you read that correctly; they need to start to figure out what might be causing this.

Allow me to take a brief moment here to help these poor unfortunates along in their search. Here are just a few things you might want to look at as you try to understand this phenomenon:

1. Some of these scholar-athletes should not be in a college for any reason. They can play football, but they can't read beyond the 8th grade level and they don't know algebra from Al Gore.

2. Scholar-athletes get scholarships, special living quarters, special facilities and special meals. Students who are just scholars get far less of these perks. So what is more important in the minds these intellect-impaired folks, sports or studies?

3. A school like Texas A&M builds bonfires for a football game. How many schools build bonfires to get the students psyched up for final exams in Newtonian mechanics?

Memo to Cedric et. al.: The clue server has been rebooted. You can now go online and download a few.

Yesterday, I said that Paul Westphal got axed in Seattle because of his rather public run-ins with Gary Payton. Peter Vesczy thinks that Vin Baker was also deeply involved in that situation because Baker's play has deteriorated terribly and he would not accept coaching from Westphal. Surely, Vesczy's sources are better than mine so I'll believe that there was more than a single reason for changing coaches in Seattle. But Baker's situation is mysterious indeed. There was a time when he was the dominant player on the Milwaukee Bucks, not Big Dog Robinson who had all the hype and the monster contract. Baker was an All-Star and I believe he was on the Olympic team in 1996. But after the lockout, he showed up for work so overweight that it looked like bats could roost in his butt-crack. While he has lost some of that weight, he has not regained any of his quickness and he seems to have forgotten how to hustle and work hard on the court. I guess there was a message in the fact that the Sonics tried to include him in the original trade that they were putting together in order to land Patrick Ewing. And in the first Sonics' game of the "post-Westphal era", Vin Baker was on the bench.

Last night the 2-12 Atlanta Hawks snapped a 22 game road losing streak by beating the Wizards 102-75. Washington shipped two of its young centers - Cherokee Parks and Obina Ekize - to basketball Purgatory. These guys now play for the Clippers and the Wizards get Tyrone Nesby to play small forward. Now that you have digested the import of this trade, you may commence yawning.

The Atlanta Hawks will play at home tomorrow against the 1-13 Chicago Bulls. I know it is early to start thinking like this, but Atlanta is one of the teams that might offer a few favorable match-ups to Chicago. If the Bulls get waxed here, it might be time to get out the schudule and see where you can count up more than 9 wins for the Bulls and start the watch to see if the 9-73 record for futility set by the Sixers is in jeopardy.

In last night's game, the Cleveland Cavaliers scored 4 points in the entire second quarter against the Boston Celtics whose defense is - how to say this politely? - suspect. NBA teams try about 80 shots a game which translates into 20 per quarter. Given that perspective, it is not easy to score that few points in a period.

Eric Lindros has been cleared to play hockey again by his physicians. Lindros does not want to play for the Flyers and GM Bobby Clarke clearly does not want him on the Flyers. Lindros says he will only play for the Maple Leafs thereby giving Clarke just about zero negotiating leverage. Clarke says this will be very difficult to accomplish. I don't get it. Here is a player you don't want; so his value to you is zero and it could be less than that if he showed up for work and demanded a uniform and prepared to practice with the team. So trade him to Toronto for a new skate sharpener and move on.

The baseball Hall of Fame ballot is out and the first time candidates include Don Mattingly, Kirby Puckett and Dave Winfield. I think that all three players will be in the Hall of Fame eventually, but I'm not so sure that any of the three are sure-fire first ballot inductees. Winfield is probably the class of the field.

The Duke/Illinois game last night was really good. Illinois is a big team and they just mauled Duke on the boards, but the Duke defense managed to steal the ball and force errant passes about every third or fourth trip down the court and so the game was tight from start to finish. Both of these teams are going to have very good years!

Earlier this month the NCAA ruled Louisville center Muhammed Lasege permanently ineligible to play college basketball because he had signed a professional basketball contract with a team in Russia in 1998. That sounds pretty consistent to me; the NCAA does not allow players to leave with eligibility left and sign with an NBA or CBA team and then come back to school and play basketball if they just don't make it in the pros. Well, Lasege is suing the NCAA for acting "arbitrarily, capriciously, in bad faith and in an unreasonable manner" over this declaration of ineligibility. I just wish the judge would say:

"Let's see. Arbitrary, capricious, in bad faith and unreasonable behavior on the part of the NCAA. So why are you suing? What's new?"

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...