To This Critic, UCLA’s Play Was <i> Too </i> Slick

UCLA’s performance against Indiana in the NCAA West Regional final obviously won’t sit well in Westwood.

Apparently, it didn’t go over too well in Albuquerque, N.M., either.

“Saturday, March 28, 1992, surely will become legendary in Los Angeles as the day of the Great UCLA Talent Spill,” wrote Rick Wright of the Albuquerque Journal.

“If Bob Knight is the Greenpeace of basketball resource management, Jim Harrick certainly must be Exxon. Save the sea otters, save the whales, save us all from the kind of letdown the Bruins provided the Pit crowd and a national TV audience Saturday afternoon.

“As brilliant as the Knight-coached Indiana Hoosiers were in their 106-79 knockout of Harrick-coached UCLA--near-perfect in every detail--there remains no way to explain the pathetic act trotted out by the Bruins.”

Role with a catch: Actress Geena Davis is hoping to win an Academy Award tonight for her performance in “Thelma & Louise.”

She also hopes that she is convincing in her role as a catcher in “A League of Their Own,” a comedy to be released in July about a women’s professional baseball team.

“For a woman, to play a baseball player was a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Davis told Interview magazine. “It would be like if I got offered a movie to be a cowboy or something--it just wouldn’t happen!”

Trivia Time: Name the films with sports themes that have won an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Exit, stage left: Phil Jackman of the Baltimore Sun writes that during filming of the movie “Pride of the Yankees” 50 years ago, Babe Ruth had a contract provision that allowed him to leave the set by 6 p.m. on Fridays.

Gary Cooper, who played Lou Gehrig, asked the Babe if he partied on Fridays. Ruth answered, “No. My favorite radio programs are on then--”Lone Ranger” and “Gang Busters.”

Lucky day: Indiana basketball fans probably wish that their team was playing for the NCAA championship tonight. The Hoosiers have won three national titles on March 30.

In 1940, Indiana routed Kansas, 60-42. In 1981, Isiah Thomas’ 23 points led Indiana to a 63-50 victory over North Carolina. In 1987, Keith Smart’s basket gave Indiana a 74-73 victory over Syracuse.

Trivia answer: “Rocky,” starring Sylvester Stallone as boxer Rocky Balboa, won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1976. “Chariots of Fire,” the story of two British runners competing at the 1924 Olympics, won Best Picture in 1981.

Add Chariots: According to Robert Osborne, author of “60 Years of Oscar,” producer David Puttnam’s idea for “Chariots of Fire” sprang from “The Official History of the Olympics,” which turned out to be the only book Puttnam could find to browse through in a newly rented home.

Sea hunt: Le Defi Francais, the French America’s Cup syndicate, has fired budget consultant Yvon Kergreis for getting caught diving around the rival Nippon boat Sunday morning.

San Diego police cited Kergreis, a French citizen, for diving in a no-diving area of Mission Bay after he was caught by the Japanese at 10 a.m. as they took their boat out for Sunday’s race against New Zealand. The French compound is about 100 yards away on Mission Bay, but Kergreis was believed to have entered the water elsewhere.

Kergreis was wearing a wetsuit but had no camera gear, which would have been standard equipment for a more serious spy, such as the one New Zealand caught under similar circumstances several weeks ago. Kergreis told French syndicate personnel he was acting on a dare from friends.

Quotebook: Minor leaguer Pete Rose Jr., son of baseball’s all-time hit leader, on why he calls his mother when he is in a slump: “My dad was such a great hitter, he didn’t bother with technical stuff. But my mom knows my swing.”