It’s not every often — ever? — that “Centenary basketball” and “Son of Sam” get in the same sentence. There you have it!

This is all due to the recent announcement that the NCAA will now officially recognize Robert Parish’s statistics while he played for the Gents in the 1970s. As David Berkowitz said when they came to arrest him, “What took you so long?”

The beginning and the end to this story defy description as far as absurdity is concerned. To make a very long story short, back in 1972 when Parish was about to enter Centenary, the NCAA used a formula based on high school grades and standardized tests to predict a player’s GPA, which needed to equate to at least a 1.600. But Parish didn’t take the SAT, so Centenary converted his score from the ACT and used that to the NCAA formula. Centenary had done this for the previous two years and nary a peep. But with the No. 1 recruit in the nation showed up, the NCAA took notice and told Centenary that the move was “illegal.” (Parish wasn’t the only Gents player who this had been applied to.)

So the NCAA dropped six years of probation on the Gents — unless they yanked the scholarships of Parish and four others. Centenary told the NCAA to go jump in the lake.

(One question remains more than 45 years later: Why didn’t Parish and the other just take the SAT? It’s not like they had to achieve a Harvard-like score.)

Eventually the NCAA did away with the formula (called the 1.6 rule), but still stuck the hammer to Centenary. There is the favorite (and often misquoted) line by famed coach Jerry Tarkanian, who often said (kind of), “Every time the NCAA gets mad at (UCLA/Kentucky/other big guys), they add another two years of probation to (Centenary/Cleveland State/other little guys).” Tarkanian filled in whatever blanks he needed to fit the audience, but the message was clear — Centenary was getting hosed.

Parish and others could have gone anywhere else and been instantly eligible, but they stayed on Kings Highway and had a memorable four-year run.

When it was over, he had 2,334 points and 1,820 rebounds, but you’d never know it because the NCAA did not recognize his stats in its record book. Only two players in the history of college basketball have more points AND rebounds than Parish’s totals.

So what happened? Did someone wake up at the NCAA one day last week and say “OK, it’s been 40 years. Enough’s enough.”  Were there protest marches outside the NCAA office and they were worried about the PR hit they were taking?

Actually, to Centenary’s credit, the school made an appeal last year to the NCAA seeking “reinstatement.” After they woke up the guy in charge of such things, the appeal was granted. And then the NCAA turned around and slapped Louisville around by denying its appeal of the vacated 2013 championship.

Somewhere out there, Jerry Tarkanian is smiling.

Louisiana Tech is coming off its busiest weekend of the athletic year so far.

Hoops doubleheader in the STAC Saturday. The Lady Techsters hit a program-record 14 three-point shots to beat Southern Miss by 32, a team that had beaten them in Hattiesburg by 15 earlier in the season. The Dunkin’ Dogs lost to Middle Tennessee, the best team I’ve seen in the STAC in the past several years, including Tech’s regular season Conference USA champs four-ish years ago. The Blue Raiders were 21-22 from the free throw line and Tech couldn’t keep Nick King, a 6-7 small forward and senior graduate transfer, from going to his left and scoring 25 in 33 minutes. I guess other teams are having the same problem: he’s averaging 22 a game. That is 21st or so in the nation. Watch for them in the postseason. (We don’t have to tell Michigan State that…)

Softball was in the Purple and Gold Invitational in Baton Rouge; the Lady Techsters went 3-2 in five games and lost 2-1 in 9-innings to 7th-ranked LSU.

The Conference USA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Birmingham.

Tennis, after getting rained out of a chance to play its home opener, finally got to play Sunday. Lady Techsters made it count beat Texas State, 4-1.

And Louisiana Tech baseball opened up its season with four games Friday-Sunday against Pepperdine. In Malibu. California. Which is not the worst place in the world for a team to open up its baseball season.

Tech lost 2-1, won 3-2, lost 1-0, won 9-3. The Bulldogs open up their home schedule Tuesday night at 6 against McNeese State. Come and you could very well be part of a record-breaking Opening Night crowd at J.C. Love Field at Pat Patterson Park.

What might be discouraging about those Opening Weekend numbers is that Tech scored just 4 runs in the first three games, (Pepperdine scored 5). But most encouraging is that Tech allowed just 8 runs in four games. AND, when it came to the fourth game in three days (Saturday was a double bubble/doubleheader), Tech had enough pitching to surrender just 3 runs.

Maybe Pepperdine is not the 1927 Yankees, but you will take allowing just 8 runs in four games all season long.

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