We’re all adults here, so let’s start with an assumption: It has become nearly impossible for a high-level Division I football or basketball player to do much more than survive in the classroom.

Providing, of course, he sees enough value in the process to care enough to expend the energy it takes to survive.

Which leads to another assumption: College coaches, whose jobs depend on their win-loss records, must pay lip service to the idea of the scholar-athlete while knowing full well the reality of their situation.

Graduation rates are front and center again, as we dutifully feign indignation and alarm.

But be serious. Does anybody think these guys are normal college students? As you watch the games Saturday and Monday, think about the class time they’ve missed since the conference tournaments began last month.

Fran Fraschilla, who recently resigned as coach at New Mexico, took exception to an item in this column last week. The item, culled from another published report, incorrectly reported a zero percent graduation rate for UNM’s team. Frischilla says he graduated 5 of 7 eligible players during his time at UNM.

The point of the item, however, is something Fraschilla -- chairman of the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ Committee on Academics -- doesn’t argue: If you’re going to compete in the manner alumni and faculty and communities demand, you can talk the scholar-athlete game, but you can’t play it.

For the most part, the hyphen in scholar-athlete isn’t a bridge, it’s a canyon.

This Week’s List:

What Billy Packer thinks: It’ll all come down to coaching in the end.

Today’s seminar begins with the question: What’s the difference between a timeout and a good timeout?

Practical application of the question: At some point during Saturday’s games, someone’s going to call a timeout that Packer will consider far, far superior to all the others.

You know it’s coming, you’re powerless to stop it, it’s almost here, it’s … it’s: "One Shining Moment."

Maybe this is why there’s only one team from Durham still playing this weekend: The Duke women’s basketball team travels with a stuffed gerbil that died several years ago, and guard Vicki Krapohl said, "We’d all be scared if he wasn’t around."

Feel free to ignore the following prognostications: 1) Oklahoma cruises past Coverdale-inhibited Indiana, exerting little energy in the process; 2) Oklahoma beats the survivor of Kansas-Maryland.

Since Mr. Grunge became Mr. Clean, somebody had to do it: Judging by spring-training appearances, Jeremy Giambi stole his brother’s hair.

What baseball needs -- a return to old-fashioned values: After Antonio Alfonseca was traded from the Marlins to the Cubs, it was revealed that A.A. had a run-in with Marlins conditioning coach Dale Torborg, a.k.a. The Demon in wrestling circles, in which A.A. ran and hid from The Demon after protesting a weigh-in.

You can have Kent and the wheelies, Alfonseca and The Demon, and Sosa vs. Bonds, because the best story of spring training happened with the Red Sox: Rickey, leadoff.

I should have known better, but: South Carolina really screwed my NIT pool.

Your tax dollars at work: After Syracuse and South Carolina both showed up wearing their home whites in the NIT semis, the Syracuse student manager received a police escort back to the hotel to retrieve the road orange.

Your tax dollars really at work: The New York Post reported this week that Kevin Appier, who has made a buck or $10 million in his day, has been receiving federal farm subsidies for his place in Kansas.

Saw a replay of Game 4 of the World Series the other day and was reminded that THE TICK IS COMING, which made me wonder: Did it fail to arrive, or has it already left?

Just for the heck of it: Peter McNeeley.

Watching Jeff Brantley on Baseball Tonight reminded me of one truth: For some unknown reason, nobody handled Barry Bonds like him.

Yeah, but I bet he’s had some cool cars in his day: Dale Carter, who received a $7.8 million signing bonus in 1999 and last month signed a $28 million deal with the Saints, has filed for bankruptcy.

And in sworn testimony, he said he came to his conclusions after days of research that included twice-daily viewings of Silence of the Lambs: The commissioner of the Nevada Athletic Commission says the folks in Memphis should take precautions for the Lewis-Tyson fight, like putting Plexiglas between the fighters during the press conference and holding separate weigh-ins.

And finally, you just know there’s a marketing guy from Green Burrito calling a meeting for first thing Monday morning: The new owners of the Red Sox have announced many changes -- $200 per game seats so close to the game a mask might have to be issued -- and say the idea of advertising on the Green Monster is possible in the future.

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tim.keown@espnmag.com.