Fashionably Late Is Always the Best Choice

Bernie Lincicome in the Rocky Mountain News: “Nothing important ever happens in basketball until the end. This is the essence of the game. Absolutely dependable.

“You can come in late and not miss a thing.

“The tidiness of it is unparalleled in athletics. No one wants to miss the opening kickoff or the first pitch, but anyone who can remember the first shot of a basketball game has a garage full of string and will wash his laundry one sock at a time.”

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Trivia time: Which two Pacific 10 women’s teams have won the NCAA basketball championship?

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Catching up: Arnold Palmer, 72, has vowed never to play another PGA event because he’s been shooting in the 80s. Jim Armstrong of the Denver Post recalls what Jack Nicklaus said as he struggled after hip-replacement surgery: “For years, everyone told me, ‘I wish I could play like you.’ Well, now you can.”

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More Armstrong: “That $39.95 to watch Larry Holmes go at it with Butterbean Esch? Do we pay that or get paid that for watching it?”

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Clever: And this from Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times on the Holmes-Esch bout: “Lard of the Rings.”

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Wise retreat: Blackie Sherrod in the Dallas Morning News: “Correcting History: Popular notion is that Paul Bryant got his Bear nickname by out-rassling a bear when a circus visited Fordyce, Ark.

“Not so.

“A 14-year-old Bryant was egged on by schoolyard pals to accept the circus challenge to rassle the animal for $1 a minute. The bear’s muzzle came loose, young Bryant fled from the theater and never collected the money.”

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His challenge: Steve Spurrier, the new Washington Redskin coach, in an interview with Ira Miller of the San Francisco Chronicle: “It’s always of interest to me that people would say [my] receivers in college were mostly wide open, but in pro ball, they won’t be.

“Well, I guess we’re gonna find out if we can get ‘em open or not. So that’s the intrigue, I think, in me and a lot of people to see if we can do that.”

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More Spurrier: Adam Schefter in the Denver Post: “He has a beautiful mind, a guaranteed $25-million contract and new Redskin visors on order that some other NFL coaches will want to bash as much as Spurrier himself.”

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A comma got him: From comedy writer Jerry Perisho: “Former San Diego Padre star Tony Gwynn was hired by ESPN. As he was reviewing the contract, Gwynn pulled a hamstring hustling from the first paragraph into the second.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1939, Oregon defeated Ohio State, 46-33, winning the first men’s NCAA basketball championship in Evanston, Ill.

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Trivia answer: USC in 1983 and 1984; Stanford in 1990 and 1992.

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And finally: “During the press conference introducing the Raiders’ new head coach,” says MSNBC.com’s Michael Ventre, “Al Davis sat in a fancy silver-and-black armchair resembling a throne while the designee, Bill Callahan, sat in a folding chair.

“To mark the occasion, Davis instituted a temporary ban on beheadings and then summoned a jester to play the lute.”