nydailynews:Brown insists he is too old to jump again, but maybe he should think again. What if Kentucky were out there, or maybe Stanford? Ding-dong, cushy academia calling.
There are no Starburys in college, only Starburys in basic training. Isn't that why Bob Knight says he would never coach the pros? Isn't that why Brown was always happier with an adoring, unquestioning fan base?
But instead of enjoying such unsophisticated worship, hearing the sweet nothings of campus boosters, Brown was stuck again last night at the sneering, impatient Garden. He was faced with what has become his customary, two-pronged torment: another opponent with much better players, and another tortured game of semantics with his point guard.
There is always lingering controversy between the two men, and this time the leftover casserole was whether or not Marbury had asked out of the previous game against Detroit. Yesterday, Brown said Marbury "told me with four minutes to go he was stiff." Marbury insisted he didn't ask to come out, that he is sick of being the scapegoat, and that he merely suggested Jamal Crawford was the right choice to take the big shot down the stretch.
"I'm not the dude that should be taking the shot at the end of the game when I just came into the game," said Marbury, who had endured a medical scare yesterday morning involving his son. "Even relief pitchers get to throw some pitches before they come out on the mound."
This is some kind of endless loop, a purgatory of "He said, he said." Better to bury one's head in the regionals, but there was no sanctuary there, either. Brown watched his beloved North Carolina lose, bemoaned how he'd left his house with the Tarheels up 16-2 and looking like a lock.
Brown already had been looking ahead to the next round, when his guy, Mark Turgeon - "my first recruit at Kansas" - would lead Wichita State against his school, UNC. Now, well, it wasn't going to happen.
This was for the best, he decided. "It would have been a tough call for me," Brown said. And then he mentioned that another one of his guys, John Calipari, was still very much alive. That was important to Brown.
There are alleged geniuses galore in the college game, only a few in the pros. Brown is one of the anointed. His counterpart last night, Riley, is another one. But Riley is far more rooted in the pro game, a long way from that Kentucky-Texas Western moment.
Riley noticed yesterday that his alma mater had lost, to UConn. He said the NCAA Tournament was exciting. That was about it, before he got back to the business of the NBA. Riley has his own tournament looming, and he figures to bring a No. 2 seed into the Eastern Conference Regional.
The Miami coach expressed his sympathies for Brown, said he knew it was impossible to rebuild at the Garden without extreme discomfort.
"You're never going to make people happy in New York unless you're winning," Riley said. "I've been through that."
Brown is surviving that tempest on a daily basis. The NCAA Ttournament gives him brief shelter from the storm, from the 19-46 record. He will keep watching the college games, Brown said, "because there are a lot of kids I might have the opportunity to coach someday."
Brown meant he would coach them when they turn pro, not when they are sophomores in college. At least that's what he seemed to mean. Starbury can hope Brown meant something very different.
