He Never Experienced a Close Encounter

Georgia basketball Coach Jim Harrick on a Southeastern Conference teleconference, was asked what’s the key to winning the close games.

“I asked that very same question to John Wooden,” Harrick recalled, “and he pondered for a long time, and he said, ‘Jim, I never expected to be in that situation.’”

And that’s why he was known as the Wizard of Westwood.

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Trivia time: Who holds the career UCLA basketball record for most points scored?

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Frustrated: Buck Coach George Karl, on the possibility he would leave Milwaukee: “I don’t think anyone is going to pay me more money, to be honest with you. So, why would I want to leave other than these guys are driving me crazy.”

And this from Buck point guard Sam Cassell, after signing a $17-million, three-year contract extension: “I play basketball, the money doesn’t matter. I’m still underpaid.”

Don’t you feel sorry for him?

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Opinion: Greg Cote in the Miami Herald: “If curling is a sport, then guys who shovel snow off driveways for a living should be making Michael Jordan money.”

* “Figure skating, whether solo or in pairs, is not a sport. It is dancing on ice. It looks like what Gene Kelly was doing in musicals 40 years ago, except that Gene never wore fey sequins.”

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Second guess: Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, needling John Madden for suggesting during the Super Bowl that the Patriots should have settled for a tie late in the fourth quarter to extend the game into overtime: “When the networks projected Al Gore as the winner in Florida, Madden no doubt suggested George Bush take a knee and run again in 2004.”

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The broom team: Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle: “I don’t understand why the U.S. didn’t recruit some witches for our curling team.”

* “Security checkpoints would be a lot more tolerable if we could invent a metal-detector wand that would also zap the wrinkles out of pants and shirts.”

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Beware ... the Lakers! Mark Kreidler of the Sacramento Bee, commenting on the Lakers: “Easiest team in the league to dismiss right now because they’re in the middle of their winter clown act, losing twice to the silly Chicago Bulls, playing without Shaq and his bum toe, lethargic for whole chunks of mind-numbing, life-sapping game time.

“And therein lies the treachery, of course. No close NBA watcher takes the current Laker approach seriously.

“Come season’s end, O’Neal and [Kobe] Bryant will be back in their championship trim, and despite a lesser cast around them this year, they’ll be good enough to pound their way into the conference finals.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1970, the Atlanta Hawks set an NBA record for most points scored in the third quarter with 54 against San Diego.

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Trivia answer: Don MacLean, 2,608 points, 1989-1992.

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And finally: Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News reporting from the NBA All-Star game in Philadelphia: “A quick Philly story: A reporter once made the mistake of asking World B. Free when he knew his game-winning shot was going down: Said Free: ‘It left my wrist didn’t it?’”

Mal Florence