College Basketball : Just Where Does Georgetown Rank in the Firmament?

“He says, ‘Hey, no, Buzz! I was just about to give the rock up for a layup! I need the assist!’ ”

Say what?

“Lefty told Jeff Adkins: ‘Hey, you’re gonna sit by me! I’m gonna make you an assistant coach!’ Jeff says, ‘Hey, coach! I need PT!’ ”

Huh?

“He shot a rainbow, but he got string music. Nothing but bottoms.”

Oh yes. If all the announcers want to sound like Al McGuire or Moses Malone, and all the coaches want to fly enough “transition games” and “good ball reversals” to qualify as rocket scientists, this must be the college basketball season.

And it is. We are meeting this time to see if Georgetown is a dynasty, at least a little one; to see if UCLA still has a program; and to find out if the NCAA can keep from Mickey-Mouse legislating what was the new hot game only a couple of years ago back into the cheap seats from whence it came.

So far the answers are maybe, could be and it’ll take a rally. What a season! Is this a great country or what?

We’ll get to the Bruins and the Shawnee Mission branch of the Mousketeers in future weeks. In the meantime we can start with:

Georgetown, scourge of the meek, defending champion, unbeaten, untied and now mentioned, in the absence of better feature angles, as a candidate for the mythical title of best college team ever.

There was a lot of talk about that after the Hoyas crushed No. 2-ranked DePaul, 77-57, and less since then, after their 65-61 victory over unranked New Mexico, their 61-56 win over unknown North Carolina A&T; and their 82-80 overtime win over Boston College. Saturday, they got by Villanova, 52-50, in overtime.

The Hoyas are described as having become a little too happy with themselves when that greatest-ever stuff started. Even if it isn’t critical, they miss their shaved-headed terror, power forward Michael Graham, who was sitting out the season before announcing last week that he is transferring to the District of Columbia. . Even in Washington now, there’s no betting they won’t lose a game, on a cold night in New York, or Syracuse, or Boston.

Nevertheless . . .

The Hoyas, before Saturday’s narrow victory, were beating opponents by an average 20.6 points a game, shooting 51.9% and holding other teams to 39.6.

Patrick Ewing is a certified first pick in the NBA draft. When junior point guard Michael Jackson and sophomore forward Reggie Williams are done, they’ll probably be No. 1s, too. Laker GM Jerry West recently said he expects the small (6-7, 205) power forward, junior Bill Martin, to go somewhere near the end of the first round, too.

And they have only two seniors, Ewing and backup center Ralph Dalton.

Other leading candidates for greatest-ever:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s first varsity UCLA team of 1966-67 which went 30-0, shot 51.9%, held opponents to 39.2% and won by an average of 25.9 points a game. Lewis Alcindor scored 29 points a game, shot 66.7% and averaged 15.5 rebounds. Two first-round draft choices (Kareem, the top pick in his draft, Lucius Allen), plus two others (Lynn Shackelford, Mike Lynn) who played in the NBA.

Bill Walton’s first varsity UCLA team of 1971-72, which started three sophomores (Walton, Jamaal Wilkes and Greg Lee), plus a junior who’d never been a regular (Larry Farmer), and went 30-0, shot 50.1%, held opponents to 38.2% and beat them by an average of 30.3 points a game. None came closer than Florida State, which lost, 81-76 in the NCAA finals. The Bruins went eight games before scoring less than 105 points. Walton averaged 21.1 points, 15.5 rebounds and shot 63%. Three first-round draft choices (Walton, a No. 1 in the draft) Wilkes and backup center Swen Nater) plus Henry Bibby, who played nine NBA seasons, and Lee, who played 10 NBA games.

Bob Knight’s Indiana masterpiece, the ‘75-76 Hoosiers who went 32-0, shooting 51.7%, holding opponents to 45.1% and beating them by an average of 17.3 points a game. On that team were four first-round draft choices (Scott May, Kent Benson, Bob Wilkerson and Quinn Buckner), plus two more (Tom Abernethy, Wayne Radford) who played in the NBA. Basketball Notes The quotes atop this, and more, were gathered in one hour of watching games on cable TV. The first two, of course, are courtesy of The One, The Only, Screamin’ Dick Vitale of ESPN, and the third comes from Joe Dean of WTBS . . . Washington Coach Marv Harshman, after his favored Huskies lost 52-45 to Oregon State, on A.C. Green: “He’s a sacred cow. He uses his off elbow on your throat. I don’t care if he’s a Christian or not.” Green is a born-again Christian . . . Bob Knight, who never met a jump shooter he didn’t think he could silence, got another one, Chris Mullin of St. John’s. Mullin was considered the ultimate gym rat until his stint on the U.S. team last summer, which was a little on the intense side for all concerned. When it ended, Mullin didn’t touch a basketball for three weeks, the first time since grade school he’d gone more than a day, he said. In one six-game stretch this season, he shot 32 for 82 until ending his slump with a 9-for-18 game against Villanova last week . . . Adding to Mullin’s shooting woes, or bad ball reversal: “Any time the ball goes inside to Walter Berry, it doesn’t come out,” says a New York writer. Berry amassed five assists in his first 11 games.