Primer Time

You knew it would happen, sooner or later, that Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski would lose his first player early to the NBA and Indiana Coach Bob Knight would shoot somebody.

But in the same off-season?

Wow, and you thought Rip Hamilton got off some shots for Connecticut in last season’s NCAA championship game.

Let’s get you updated: Not long after UConn tore down the nets in St. Petersburg, Fla., four Duke players with eligibility remaining, for Pete’s sake, tore out of town. Elton Brand, William Avery and Corey Maggette opted for the NBA, and unhappy Chris Burgess transferred to Utah.

That’s what happens at Duke when you lose two games in one season.

The defections shook the paragon of programs to its core and left Duke with only five or six incoming McDonald’s All-Americans to get it through the winter.

Meanwhile, months after he scared another player, Luke Recker, out of Bloomington (he transferred to Arizona), Knight went grouse-hunting in Spooner, Wis. You know how it goes: Load gun, set gun down, gun goes off, buddy has to pick birdshot out of backside.

Knight, known to go ballistic on a player who doesn’t rotate on defense, was cited for failure to report a hunting accident and hunting without a small-game license.

On the subject of small game, Knight’s Hoosiers last won a Big Ten title in 1992-93.

At Knight’s annual address to the Indiana faithful, an IU student asked if he could sit at the end of the bench during a home game.

“You can sit at the end of the bench,” Knight said, “but if I hear one word, you’re gone. I don’t mean gone for the day. I’ve been known to shoot people.”

Funny guy.

So much news, so little space: Another batch of future NBA all-stars left college early, raising howls of concern but no real answers.

Coaching changes? Get a pencil and pad. There were more than 50 in Division I. Two old bench horses, Missouri’s Norm Stewart and Don Haskins of Texas El Paso, called it quits.

Jim Harrick, of UCLA fame, and then infamy, left Rhode Island for Georgia, changed his mind and returned to Rhode Island, then changed his mind and returned to Georgia.

As of this writing, he was still there.

Steve Fisher, who won a national title in his sixth game as a head coach at Michigan before being chased out of Ann Arbor two years ago in an NCAA scandal, got as far away from major college basketball as he could without fleeing to the Caymans.

Fisher took the San Diego State job.

Utah’s Rick Majerus was wined and dined, and dined, and dined, by suitors, Notre Dame and San Diego State to name two, but ultimately decided to keep his sweet job and hotel suite.

And while Knight and Krzyzewski and Roy Williams continue to rack up wins, the balance of power in coaching is shifting to the young guns: Steve Alford at Iowa, Billy Donovan at Florida, Steve Lavin at UCLA, Quin Snyder at Missouri, Tom Izzo at Michigan State, Tommy Amaker at Seton Hall, Matt Doherty at Notre Dame.

There are now 318 schools in Division I with the addition of Stony Brook, SUNY Albany, Elon, Belmont, Sacred Heart, High Point, Oakland and Alabama A&M.;

Fret not: These fledglings will have no impact on your NCAA tournament office pool decisions until 2010, at the earliest.

The best returning players in the country, by position, are:

Point guard: Mateen Cleaves, Michigan State. Unfortunately, the hero of the Spartans’ Final Four run is out because of a bum foot and won’t be of any use until Big Ten play starts.

Shooting guard: Quentin Richardson, DePaul. This smallish rebounding machine reminds even Adrian Dantley of Adrian Dantley.

Center: Chris Mihm, Texas. It takes this 7-footer only a Texas two-step to get from free-throw line to rim.

Small forward: Chris Porter, Auburn. He’s so good, he has made Auburn fans forget how lousy the football team is.

Power forward: Hanno Mottola, Utah. Bo knew. Hanno knows. Like Cleaves, he’s out for a while.

The biggest big man in the game is Brad Millard, Saint Mary’s 7-3, 345-pound behemoth. Welcome back, “Big Continent.” Millard sat out most of the last two seasons because of a foot injury, but no one has forgotten how he played Wake Forest’s Tim Duncan to a draw in the 1997 NCAA tournament.

The best little guy is Arkansas State’s Chico Fletcher who, at 5-6, falls between Shanta Rogers (5-4) and Monte Towe (5-7) in little man’s lore. Chico is the man at Arkansas State, a full-court dynamo who is trying to become a three-time Sun Belt player of the year.

FOUR FRESHMEN

First-year guys who will make an immediate impact:

1. Jason Williams, point guard, Duke. With Avery gone, Coach K has no choice but to hand the team over to Williams.

2. Jason Gardner, point guard, Arizona. Look, another “Mr. Indiana Basketball” who got away from Knight.

3. DerMarr Johnson, shooting guard, Cincinnati. This 6-9 shooter from Maine Central Institute could be a one-year-and-out man for Coach Bob Huggins, but it’ll be worth the recruiting work if the Bearcats get back to the Final Four.

4. Casey Jacobsen, guard-forward, Stanford. The former Glendora High star already showed some stuff in Stanford’s two-game sweep in the “Coaches vs. Cancer” tournament in New York. He figures to grow up fast, now that Mark Madsen is out because of a hamstring injury.

TRANSFER FOR POWER

Top incoming transfer to a program:

Loren Woods, Arizona. This 7-footer was part of a twin tower package with Duncan at Wake Forest before growing disillusioned and getting on the waiting list for a hoops transplant. Olson hasn’t had a big guy like this who can run the floor since, ever.

Top junior college transfer:

Schea Cotton, Alabama. They should make a movie of his odyssey through the basketball meat grinder, from prep legend in L.A., to his battles with the NCAA, to his holding-station days at Long Beach City College. Bottom line: This 6-5 shooting guard could have as much impact on his program as former junior college players Steve Francis of Maryland and Auburn’s Porter.

BEST TEAM

Florida.

OK, we might have picked this piece of citrus a year too soon, but we’ll take our chances. Donovan’s last two recruiting classes were Duke-esque, and frankly, with apologies to the football coach, he’s running the most exciting offense on campus. You know a guy is getting close to national title when opposing coaches start assailing his recruiting tactics. Donovan is not beloved among his brethren, which has us thinking the Gators will be in the Final Four.

FEEL-GOOD YARN

John Chaney, Temple. Every season needs a hard-luck cause to rally around, and Chaney’s our man. Any poll of NCAA coaches would list Temple as the school they’d least want to play in the NCAA tournament. Yet, Chaney, 68, has never taken a team to the Final Four. With four starters returning, point guard Pepe Sanchez among them, this may be Chaney’s last best shot.

His matchup-zone defense is a minefield for opposing offenses, and the Final Four could use his shoot-from-the-lip opinions.

UPSET SPECIAL

Siena. It’s in Loudonville, N.Y., and the Saints play in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. And some big-time program is going to freak next March when it gets bracketed with the Saints in the first round or two of the NCAA tournament. Siena has four starters from last season’s 25-6 squad and plays a pedal-to-the-metal brand of ball that has made third-year Coach Paul Hewitt, a former grad assistant for George Raveling at USC, one of the hottest major college coaching prospects.

GAMES TO WATCH

* Nov. 27: Stanford-Auburn, Wooden Classic. The game has lost some of its luster with Stanford’s Madsen out, but Porter versus the Collins twins, Jason and Jarron, will still be a kick.

* Jan. 18: Iowa at Indiana. It would be nice to report this as a mentor-tutor lovefest between first-year Iowa Coach Alford, sharpshooter for Indiana’s 1987 NCAA champion squad, and Knight, but Knight has turned a cold shoulder, calling Alford “just another guy” at the Big Ten media day.

Alford has long been rumored as Knight’s logical successor, but Alford may be better off building his own legacy elsewhere.

* March 4: North Carolina at Duke. Duke fans dominated the Weber State memorabilia trade this summer, lapping up every last sweatshirt and key chain, all to be on display at Cameron Indoor Arena. Weber State, of course, knocked off North Carolina in the first round of last season’s NCAA tournament.

COACHES UNDER SCRUTINY

1. Jerry Tarkanian, Fresno State. Tark returned to his alma mater four years ago to lead one last NCAA charge, but “60 Minutes” is the only prime time exposure the program has received.

2. Knight, Indiana. We can almost tolerate the boorish behavior, restaurant scenes and hunting accidents when Knight is producing state-of-the-art teams on the floor. But Knight’s bullying tactics are scaring off talent and producing “snoozers.”

3. Bobby Cremins, Georgia Tech. Yeah, it’s not your fault Dion Glover split to the NBA after last season because of an injury, but one NCAA appearance since 1992-93 still doesn’t cut it. Cremins has five starters from last season’s 15-16 squad, and may need an NCAA appearance to save his job.