Q: Ken, could you ever see Jim Harrick returning to coaching?
— Chioke Hassan, Baltimore, Md.

A: No. At least I hope not.

I assume you are talking about Jim Harrick, who coached at UCLA, Rhode Island and Georgia — and not his son Jim Harrick, Jr. Again, my only response is, “No.

Jim Harrick broke the rules at UCLA, Rhode Island and Georgia. I thought Harrick was a great guy at Pepperdine. He had us all fooled for a while, but then he did too much damage to the college game. Any athletic director who would even consider hiring Harrick should be fired.

Harrick Jr. was slapped with a seven-year “show-cause” order for his part in the academic fraud at Georgia. He can’t come back until 2011 at the earliest. I don’t know why anyone would want to hire him for a college job either, but stranger things have happened.

Q: What is the difference in a feely, touchy, hand-check foul on a player defending a guard and two big men fighting for position on the inside? The bigs are certainly doing more than hand-checking!
— Walter Bowser, Knoxville, Tenn.

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A: I’m trying to read between the lines of your question Walter. Obviously you are upset about the way games are being officiated and it seems you are most annoyed by hand-checking calls. I wish you had included a specific example so we could examine what is disturbing you.

A foul is a foul. The way a game is called is often determined by the style of play employed by one or both teams. If a team uses pressure, either a fullcourt press or aggressive perimeter defense, you might see more hand-checking calls. If a game features dominant big men, you might see a lot of calls in the paint.

There’s a theory that officials can’t call every foul against some hand-checking teams. Otherwise the game would be played at the free-throw line and take six hours to finish. There has been an emphasis on cleaning up play in the low post the past two or three seasons. You will never do that completely but I honestly think the officiating this season has been pretty good. If a player lets an elbow fly, he usually gets called for a foul. And that’s a change for the better.