**Louisville Coach Rick Pitino was on hand Monday night to watch Mount Vernon junior point guard Jabarie Hinds in his team’s final regular season game. Hinds dropped 13 points in a 77-67 loss.

The top six schools showing interest in Hinds are Louisville, Virginia, Wake Forest, St. John’s, UNLV and Seton Hall, coach Bob Cimmino said.

As I wrote Monday, Cimmino and Hinds will meet in July to cut the list and focus on certain schools.

**According to NYCHoops.net, Pitino and Florida coach Billy Donovan were also on hand Sunday when Christ the King beat Rice, 60-52. Rice features 6-9 senior center Kadeem Jack and 6-5 junior wing Jermaine Sanders, while Christ the King features Omar Calhoun, a 6-3 sophomore shooting guard.

**Bryon Allen, a 6-1 combo guard from St. Thomas More (Conn.), will make an official visit to Siena beginning Sunday night, according to sources. Allen, once committed to West Virginia, is also considering Boston College and Oregon, according to the NBE Basketball Report.

**6-8 Maryland commit Ashton Pankey had surgery for a stress fracture in his left leg on Feb. 4 and is out for the rest of St. Anthony’s season but is looking forward to playing next year for the Terps.

“Ashton’s surgery was successful. He will begin rehab in 4-6 weeks. He is extremely disappointed that he will not be able to play and help St. Anthony try to win another title as he worked hard over the summer to improve his game but he is looking forward to getting healthy for his freshman year at the University of Maryland,” said Jeff Rivera, Pankey’s AAU coach with New Heights.

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Duhon was already joyous that his hometown New Orleans Saints won their first Super Bowl Sunday night.

And now, after a two-game experiment with Nate Robinson as the starting point guard, Duhon will return to the Knicks’ starting lineup beginning with Tuesday’s game against Sacramento at Madison Square Garden.

“I think Nate’s better at off guard,” Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni added. “He’s just a better off guard than he is a point guard and I think he understands that. The team functions a little better with a true point.”

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And we applaud them for it.

Despite their, ahem, advanced age, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend put on a tremendous show at halftime of Sunday’s Super Bowl. They sounded, and looked, great.

Beginning in 2005, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and now The Who have rocked the halftime show.

Prior to that, Aerosmith (2001) and U2 (‘02) played the break.

So, who does that leave in the “Classic Rock” genre who could have such mass appeal?

Here are a few options going forward: Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, AC/DC and The Dave Matthews Band.

The DMB was the top grossing North American act of the 2000s; the Eagles were No. 8; the Mac No. 33; and AC/DC No. 35.

Having seen AC/DC twice in the last year or so, I can personally attest to the fact that no band on earth — not U2, not The Who, not Van Halen — brings it as hard and heavy as these guys. I’m not sure they have the mass appeal to excite a billion Super Bowl watchers, but they certainly would be loud.

Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles would be safer bets, and would likely play it right down the middle.

While rumors abound that Sammy Hagar may join Aerosmith and Steven Tyler tried out for Led Zeppelin, I’m still holding out hope that Robert Plant pulls it together and reunites with his old mates.

But, alas, I’m not sure that will ever happen…

Of course, there’s always Anvil…

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NEW YORK -

“[Shoot], Kevin’s normally here by now,” Kettler, West Virginia’s strength and conditioning coach, thought to himself.

“All of a sudden I see Kevin running in in a warmup suit sweating his [butt] off. He ran maybe 20 minutes with a backpack and everything on and apologized to me three or four times,” Kettler recalled.

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The next in that line is junior point guard Jabarie Hinds.

The 6-foot, 166-pound Hinds is ranked No. 18 among point guards in the Class of 2011 and No. 77 overall.

He’s averaging 25 points, 4.5 assists, 4 rebounds and 3 steals for a team that is 12-5 and plays its final regular season game Monday.

“He’ll be a point guard that understands the flow of the game. He’ll get the ball to the players he’s supposed to get it to. He can score when he needs to score and he loves to play defense,” Cimmino said when asked to describe what Hinds will contribute at the next level.

It’s still early but Cimmino says half a dozen schools are working the hardest on landing Hinds.

“The people into him the most are Louisville, Virginia, Wake Forest, St. John’s, UNLV and Seton Hall,” Cimmino said.

Cimmino said, Seton Hall, in particular has “done a lot of work.”

Cimmino and Hinds attended the Pirates’ victory over Pittsburgh Jan. 24 at the Prudential Center.

“I don’t know if I’ve seen a better arena. It’s gorgeous,” Cimmino said.

Cimmino said Hinds planned to play the spring AAU season before cutting down his list in the summer.

“He definitely hasn’t tipped his cards,” Cimmino said. “He keeping it close to his vest. I want him to do the spring season and then we’ll get together in early July and get a list of five or six schools and focus on setting up visits later in the summer.”

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Kyrie Irving

The Celtics won despite a huge controversy swirling around the program.

St. Patrick will be declared ineligible for the upcoming New Jersey state tournament at a New Jersey Interscholastic Athletic Association hearing this week because it allegedly held illegal preseason practices, according to a source with direct knowledge.

The NJSIAA said there is a “99 percent” chance the hearing will be moved to Friday from Wednesday because of the impending snowstorm.

The executive committee of the NJSIAA is expected to “rubber stamp” the recommendation of the Controversies Committee to suspend St. Patrick, the source said.

“We had several open gyms prior to the season – that was the accusation,” Celtics coach Kevin Boyle told MaxPreps.com after the Taft game. “It has to go to another committee to decide if it’s overturned or if they agree with the penalty.

“I’ll say this: something will come out that is really going to surprise people.”

The source said Boyle will receive a three-game suspension — potentially beginning with Friday’s game against Oak Hill Academy in the PrimeTime Shootout — and the program faces two years of probation.

If that happens, the Celtics won’t be able to defend the Tournament of Champions title they won last season.

“That would be very disappointing,” the Duke-bound Irving, who scored a game-high 24 points against Taft, told MaxPreps.com. “This is my senior year and I’d love to end my year winning back-to-back state titles.

“The thing is we can’t control or pay any attention to that. It’s a ruling. We have to get past all that and just play good basketball. I think we did that tonight.”

If St. Patrick can’t defend its title, the T of C would be wide open to a number of challengers, including Paterson Catholic, St. Anthony, Plainfield and Seton Hall Prep.

Boyle said he hoped his team could compete in either the state tournament or the ESPN Rise National Invitational in April.

“We’ll see what is available to us,” Boyle told MaxPreps. “We’re confident and hopeful it will be in one of those two events.”

An ESPN spokesman said the tournament will only invite teams that have been cleared by their state’s governing bodies.

“Before we will even approach a school we have to know that the state association or the governing body will allow them to play in the games,” Crystal Howard said. “If they don’t say that schools in their governance could play in our games, we won’t even consider going against those rulings and actually select or invite.”

(Photo courtesy SI.com)

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Initially, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle covering both the Knicks and Big East basketball for SNY.tv. But aside from being out of the house and away from my family several nights a week, things have worked out pretty well so far.

Except for one thing.

I’ve seen a lot of bad basketball.

During a five-day span this past week, I saw Seton Hall (at Villanova), St. John’s (to West Virginia) and the Knicks (to Milwaukee) all lose.

Then on Saturday things got even worse.

The Knicks and Nets were both in action in the NBA, as were all three local Big East teams:  Rutgers, Seton Hall and St. John’s.

The collective result?

Those five New York-area teams lost by a combined 74 points.

The Nets dropped to 4-46 after a 99-92 loss at Detroit.

That is the worst 50-game start in the history of the four major pro sports.

Let that sink in for a minute.

In Cleveland, LeBron dropped 47 points on the Knicks, who made a valiant comeback from 20 down at the half before falling 113-106.

The Knicks dropped to 19-31, a season-worst 12 games under .500.

New York has now lost 5 of 6 and 7 of 9.

As one of my colleagues pointed out, if you have 30 losses by the NBA All-Star Break, you ain’t makin’ the playoffs.

The Knicks are hoping that LeBron — or Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh — comes to the Big Apple via free agency next summer, but one free agent after another has come through New York questioning why the others would do that.

There’s a lot of pressure and media attention in New York. The team isn’t winning now. And there’s no guarantee who will even be on the roster next year.

Reggie Miller recently asserted to The New York Times that James definitely wasn’t coming to New York.

When Knicks president Donnie Walsh asked Miller directly if he knew that to be true, Miller backed down and said he didn’t.

I recently had a source tell me that LeBron was shopping for houses in Miami, so who knows?

What seems a near certainty is that the Knicks won’t make the playoffs for the first time since 2004.

Now let’s look at the local Big East teams.

Rutgers (2-9), St. Johns (2-8) and Seton Hall (3-7) are a combined 7-24 in the Big East.

The three locals now reside in 13th (Seton Hall), 14th (St. John’s) and 15th (Rutgers) places in the 16-team Big East.

After raising hopes with a modest two-game winning streak, Rutgers fell by 16 on Saturday at Louisville.

In a game I covered for SNY, St. John’s blew a 15-point second-half lead and lost by 19 to a West Virginia outfit that started five guys from New York and New Jersey, including former Bloomfield Tech star Da’Sean Butler, who dropped a season-high 33 points.  Long Island City’s Devin Ebanks, a likely first-round NBA pick should he elect to go in June, added 12 and 10 and used his length to anchor Bob Huggins’ 1-3-1 zone defense.

That make six games this season that the Johnnies have lost after leading at the half.

Six.

In Pittsburgh, Bobby Gonzalez switched things up by bringing leading scorer Jeremy Hazell off the bench but the Pirates lost by 25 points to the Panthers. Hazell managed just 2 points on 1-for-7 shooting.

As if that weren’t enough, the AP reported that the Pirates had to hike several blocks in knee-deep snow drifts to their hotel after their bus was halted in the snow.

“I guess when it rains, it pours,” Gonzalez said. “Or, like they say, when it snows, it snows.”

At least two of these programs could be ripe for coaching changes after the season, when Rutgers AD Tim Pernetti and St. John’s president Father Donald J. Harrington will have some hard choices to make.

Do they pull the plug and absorb the financial losses associated with buying out a head coach? Can they even afford to do so?

If they elect to do so, who comes in next?

There’s a lot of talk about recycling former Division I head coaches for these jobs, and we’ve all heard the same names over and over.

Fans have gotten creative, mentioning everyone from Bob Knight to Lawrence Frank to Bob Hurley as possibilities. Frank and Hurley both told me directly they weren’t interested in coaching at the college level. It’s NBA or bust for Frank, and St. Anthony or bust for the legendary Hurley.

If, and when, Rutgers and St. John’s, along with Fordham, FDU and others, elect to make changes, they should consider bringing in some fresh young blood.

Mike Rice, 40, has done a great job at Robert Morris and could be a natural candidate for a couple locations, as Tim Sullivan of the New York Post pointed out last week.

And what about Kevin Willard? The Iona coach has done a tremendous job with the Gaels, who are 17-7 with a roster full of guys from New York and New Jersey.

But somebody, if not Fordham itself, should give Fordham interim head coach Jared Grasso a shot.

Despite the Ram’s struggles this year with a young outfit, nobody works harder in this area on recruiting than Grasso, the youngest D-1 head coach in America. Ask Bob Hurley who the hardest working assistant coach he has dealt with in the past few years was..and he won’t hesitate to mention Grasso.

St. Patrick coach Kevin Boyle and St. Benedict’s coach Dan Hurley are also two young guys who deserve a shot at an NEC or MAAC school. With all that they’ve accomplished, why not give them a shot?

Nobody is saying all of these local programs can or will be turned around overnight.

But how much longer can New York go on being virtually irrelevant in the world of basketball?

(Photo courtesy Daily News)

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Tyrone Johnson,

Coach John Thompson III’s staff was among the first teams involved with the powerful and skilled floor general.

But it wasn’t until last week that the Hoyas actually offered him a scholarship.

“They’ve been on him for a while. JT3 made it official this week,” Derrick Bobbitt, Johnson’s AAU coach, said Saturday.

The No. 46 prospect in the Class of 2011 according to Rivals, Johnson also holds offers from Rutgers, Seton Hall, Virginia Tech and interest from Kentucky, Villanova, West Virginia, UConn, Indiana, Virginia, Temple and UNLV.

“Hopefully, we’ll get to  West Virginia, Virginia Tech or Virginia before the season ends,” Bobbitt said.

HARRIS VISITS BC

Tyler Harris, the 6-8 younger brother of Tennessee-bound forward Tobias Harris, took an unofficial visit Saturday to Boston College for the Duke game.

“The trip was great. We just finished up talking to Coach [Al] Skinner. BC is very nice and a good program,” Torrel Harris wrote by text.

Torrel said his son will likely grow to 6-10 or 6-11 and that he has reclassified him to the Class of 2012. He will prep somewhere after leaving Half Hollow Hills West on Long Island.

GIBBS MISSES MARYLAND GAME

Seton Hall Prep junior point guard Sterling Gibbs wasn’t able to trip to Maryland for Sunday’s North Carolina game because of the snowstorm. He also had a mandatory practice Sunday.

(Photo courtesy NJ.com)

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All he could do was flash a smile and slowly backpedal down the court.

After struggling to score 9 points on 2-for-7 shooting in the first half, Butler made 7 of 11 shots and scored 24 points in a second half in which the Mountaineers outscored St. John’s, 57-27. The Newark, N.J. native went a perfect 7-for-7 from behind the arc on the afternoon and finished with a season-best 33 points.

Read the full story here.

**No. 7 Hoyas stun No. 2 Villanova behind Austin Freeman’s 25

**Hayward’s 28 lifts Marquette over Providence.

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The cover read, “Final 4 – Jennings, Holiday, Evans & Stephenson. Who’s the best guard in the country?”

Three years later, three of those four guys are in the NBA and the fourth, Stephenson, likely soon will be.

Before Jennings torched the Knicks for 22 points and 8 assists in a 114-107  Bucks’ victory at Madison Square Garden, he spoke about the NBA prospects of Stephenson, a freshman at Cincinnati, and Kentucky frosh John Wall.

“I haven’t heard much about [Stephenson] so in that case probably when you don’t hear a lot about somebody, they probably need to stay another year or so,” Jennings said.

The 6-5 Stephenson was the Big East Preseason Rookie of the Year and is the favorite to win that same postseason award. He has been steady, but not spectacular, averaging 12 points and 5.1 rebounds per game.

“He’s had a good year,” Bearcats coach Mick Cronin said recently. “I think for a freshman he’s had a great year. You can’t compare people to John Wall or Michael Beasley but Lance has had a very good year. I’d probably say if the voting were taken right now he’d probably be Freshman of the Year in the Big East. You can’t live up to ridiculous expectations that other people set forth for you.”

“He’s always been stronger than other kids and he always had that NBA body,” Jennings said. “Colleges are different. But when you get to the league it’s more open and you’re able to really showcase your skills.”

Jennings should know. After not getting a qualifying SAT score to attend Arizona, he spent last season in Italy, where the playing time was sparse and the lessons were hard. Now he and Evans are Rookie of the Year candidates.

Jennings is averaging 17.2 points, 6.2 assists and 3.6 rebounds, while out in Sacramento, Evans is averaging 20.7 points, 5 assists and 4.7 rebounds.

Jennings, like virtually everyone else, says Wall will be the No. 1 pick.

“I think the kid John Wall for sure is going to be the No. 1 pick…Now you just gotta wait and see how good they’re really gonna be on the next level because on the next level everybody can do what you can do.

“In college everybody can’t do what John Wall can do.”

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