Let me see if I have this straight :

A few years ago, Indiana University fired its men’s basketball coach because he had a hot temper. Bob Knight won a couple of NCAA titles, graduated players and never was in hot water with the NCAA, but the ‘tude finally wore too thin.

Now, the Hoosiers have hired a man who has never won an NCAA title, has a shabby record of graduating student-athletes and currently is the focus of an NCAA investigation. Ah, but Kelvin Sampson is a friendly guy well-liked by the media, his contemporaries and his constituents.

What does that tell you about big-time college athletics today?

As you know, Kansas University’s two geographic rivals have hired new men’s basketball coaches.

Kansas State hired Bob Huggins, a man with a compartment full of baggage, while Missouri hired Mike Anderson, a Nolan Richardson protege who had produced some NCAA Tournament teams at Alabama-Birmingham.

In baseball terms, Kansas State hit a home run, and Missouri settled for a ground-rule double.

Huggins may not be the college basketball equivalent of Mother Teresa, but he gives a program that has been treading water for more than a decade instant recognition.

If you had asked 10 people on the street to name K-State’s coach, you’d be lucky to find one who would have answered Jim Wooldridge. Almost everybody, however, knows Bob Huggins.

Chances are, Huggins will generate unwanted controversy during his stay in Manhattan, but that is then, and this is now. K-State desperately needed to make something happen now. Not next year. Not in two years. Now.

Missouri, meanwhile, still is Missouri. No school in the Big 12 Conference is more committed to mediocrity in major sports than Mizzou.

In football, the Tigers have the potential to draw as many fans as Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M, but Missouri won’t make a commitment to football excellence.

In men’s basketball, Mizzou also has vast potential, yet no MU team ever has advanced to the NCAA Final Four.

Missouri needs to look in the mirror and say, “Hey, this timid approach isn’t working.” Kansas State thought outside the box in hiring Huggins. Missouri, however, doggedly disdained stepping out of its cubbyhole.

Missouri likes to take the safe and frugal path by hiring proven winners at mid-majors. What MU needs to do is rise up off its wallet, rush to the bank and make a big-time coach an offer he can’t refuse.

If I was at Missouri, I would have swooped into Lubbock, Texas, and made Bob Knight an offer. If he said no, I would have offered him more. If he said no again, I would have upped the ante.

Knight may have a temper, but he’s clean, and he stresses academics. He might have been tough to live with, but who cares? Hiring Knight – or someone with his cachet – would have sent a message that Missouri is tired of being mediocre and isn’t going to take it anymore.

Instead, the Tigers steadfastly refuse to change their stripes. Not that Kansas University is complaining. The Jayhawks couldn’t ask for a better neighbor.