WITHOUT QUESTION

THE STORY goes that boxing promoter Don King was being sued for broken promises when he was asked to comment on the allegations.

King erupted. “Allegations?” he shouted, “I don’t even know the alligators!”

If you or I were totally innocent of serious charges — if we had nothing at all to do with it or hide — and held a news conference to declare our total innocence, wouldn’t we be eager to take questions afterwards?

That’s why it seemed odd that University of Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller on Thursday, after reading a statement declaring his complete innocence in an alleged $100,000 payment to land a top recruit, then refused to take, let alone answer, any questions.

Also odd was that Miller spoke haltingly, remedially, as if reading from a lawyer-crafted statement he’d seen for the first or second time.

Had he taken questions, it seems certain Miller would have been asked why, if totally innocent, did he choose to remove himself from coaching the game after the story broke, and then chose to not attend practices. Or was that at the school’s urging?

Then, what happened between then and now to return you to your team while declaring your full, scripted innocence?

I don’t know if Miller’s guilty, innocent or a little bit pregnant, but I do know that extending blind faith to big-time, bigticket college coaches — at $2.9 million per plus perks and bonuses, he and football coach Kevin Sumlin are by far the school’s highest-paid employees — would be a fool’s decision or the choice of the schools’ biggest sports yahoos, specifically those who prefer not to know.

Shucks, if I were that clean on such a scandalous matter, I’d have answered anything and everything I know, including state capitals.