NCAA has no class with doublespeak

HOW long would your TV last if it was armed with a device set to explode the moment it detects pure, untreated garbage?

From Friday night’s UCLA-Georgia Tech game from Shanghai on ESPN, the one before which three UCLA players were arrested for shoplifting — called for traveling — Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott spoke:

“It’s very unfortunate. It’s about goodwill. It’s about an experience for the student-athletes. I’m incredibly disappointed that a situation has arisen that has distracted from all the amazing experiences that student-athletes are having here.”

Boom!!! There goes your TV! The three players are

freshmen, sent on this 16,000-mile, nine-day journey to play one game in early November with school in session.

UCLA’s student-athletes will soon play a two-day tournament on ESPN and in Kansas City, Mo. — just

before UCLA’s Thanksgiving break. Then it’ll be off to Michigan, New Orleans and the conference tournament, which begins in Las Vegas on a Wednesday.

Commissioner Scott is paid over $4 million a year to say such laughable things. That explains it.

A deranged intruder, Saturday, first barged into CBS’s broadcast truck at the Georgia-Auburn game, then hit ESPN’s truck at Notre Dame-Miami, both times successfully demanding, at gun or knife-point, that the producers post similar, incredibly stupid graphics.

There’s no other way to explain why, at 30-3, Auburn, CBS noted this about Georgia: “Most points allowed since 2016.” Later, on ESPN/ABC: “ND, last time shutout in any half, 2016.”

Given that 2016 was just last year — as confirmed by ESPN — it’s clear both producers were threatened with their lives.

A sack by Auburn’s Jeff Holland, Saturday, was followed by his exaggerated steps to the center of the field from where he stood alone to take a long, slow, flamboyant bow. Despite video proof to the contrary, Holland portrayed the sack as yet another all-about-me play.

While CBS replayed the sack, it also replayed Holland’s rank immodesty —

twice, both in slow motion, ensure everyone saw that this is how football is now and should be played.

Announcers Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson, perhaps disinclined to offend fools, didn’t say a word, thus another opportunity was lost to identify an epidemic with only downside consequences. Or could it be that they liked what they saw? Nah.

Of course, the next time they witness some act of excessive self-aggrandizement — premature self-celebration, a pivotal flag for unsportsmanlike conduct — we’ll hear, “What was he thinking?” as if TV played no role.