One man donned a scarlet sweater, the other a crimson cape -- and both outfits had people seeing red.
Bob Knight and Blake Griffin were this weekend's antagonists, inciting hostilities in Berkeley and Lubbock with fearless playfulness and ferocious play.
Knight, the former Army coach, turned Indiana coach, turned Texas Tech coach, turned ESPN analyst, took his precious 1st Amendment rights to California's Haas Pavilion for Saturday's game between the Golden Bears and UCLA's Bruins.
Any game involving Knight ultimately has to be about him, and so this one was, and it was terrific theater.
Even the hippies out on Telegraph Avenue know, though, that free speech in a crowded theater can cause constitutional combustion.
In the famous 1919 Supreme Court case, Schenck vs. United States, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. set limits on future basketball analysts falsely shouting fire in a theater and "causing a panic."
Holmes, though, mentioned nothing about "wearing" fire.
Knight, a career disobedient, took lawlessness to the edge when he sported that fire-engine red pullover, roughly the hue favored by archrival Stanford, into a blue-and-gold Berkeley arena.
Cal fans were so busy razzing Knight -- "Take off that red shirt!" -- they obviously didn't have enough energy left to distract UCLA into defeat.
Anyone who thinks Knight has lost his edge isn't paying attention.
This incident at Haas was not to be confused with another landmark Bay Area weekend court case, Shank vs. Maples Pavilion. That involved USC's losing at Stanford in a game in which the Trojans could barely make a free throw.
Meanwhile, in Lubbock, where Bob Knight once coached before turning tuckered-out Texas Tech over to his son Pat, fans in the Big 12 learned you don't spit into West Texas wind or tug on Superman's cape.
Superman was Oklahoma sophomore Griffin, who figured the best way to shake off the brain bruise that forced him to miss a game and a half was to throw himself over the scorer's table in pursuit of a loose ball.
Maybe Griffin misunderstood. Doctors cleared him to play . . . not for takeoff.
Yet, it seemed only fitting that the play of the year would come from the player of the year.
Griffin was concussed -- my new favorite word -- in basketball battle last Monday, leading to losses to Texas and Kansas that may have prevented a Sooners rise to No. 1.
