The president of the NCAA went on the offensive the other day, taking on a couple of easy targets to make his case that most jocks aren’t nearly as dumb as you might think.

Actually, Myles Brand says, they might be smarter than the average college student, no matter what the apparently not-so-bright media and an equally ignorant congressman try to lead you to believe.

“There really is no excuse for getting this information wrong,” Brand said.

Brand used the federal government’s own statistics to make his case that student-athletes fare better in college than those who don’t play intercollegiate sports. And the best statistic was one that showed 63 percent of athletes who entered college in 1999 graduated within six years, compared with 61 percent of regular students.

Pretty impressive stuff, and you can’t go wrong going after two professions people love to hate. If only Brand had thrown lawyers in there, too, he could have scored a rare trifecta of easily bashed targets.

Pretty timely too, considering the NCAA has just a few more days to answer a bunch of questions from the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee about graduation rates and the fate of $545 million in tax-free money the NCAA gets every year from CBS to broadcast the men’s basketball tournament.

Brand will surely trumpet the figures in his report to Congress as proof that the NCAA’s efforts to get some sort of control over the academic side of college athletics are working.

And, to be sure, he’s got some reason to brag.

Under his watch, the NCAA has for the first time instituted penalties on schools who don’t graduate a decent portion of their athletes. Ninety-nine teams at 65 colleges and universities lost scholarships this year because they weren’t graduating enough players.

For the first time, coaches are being forced to give more thought to academics than just knowing the name of the team’s tutors. It’s causing them to think twice about the kind of player they might recruit, and what they need to do for players once they’re enrolled at school.

So give Brand a pat on the back for forcing the issue. It’s long overdue from an organization whose only priority for years seemed to be finding out whether Jerry Tarkanian gave a kid lunch money or offered him a ride in his car.

But numbers aren’t always what they seem. And these numbers are no exception.

Yes, more athletes are graduating. They should, because part of the deal at most colleges and universities is that athletes get tutors, structured study times and, in general, a lot more academic help than the average student who has trouble even finding an adviser to help him fill out a class schedule.

Some even get special classes to take to help them along. Who can forget the final exam for the University of Georgia’s Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball class, where players had to answer such questions as how many halves are in a game and how many points you get for a three-point shot.

But the troubling thing is not how many are graduating, but who is doing the graduating.

If you’re a female rower on scholarship, odds are very good you’ll get a diploma. That’s not surprising because a lot of college rowing teams were formed simply to meet Title IX requirements, and those who get scholarships are highly motivated to attend college.

The numbers, though, are still dismal for the athletes you see on television.