In 1987, the last time I followed college basketball, I cheered for the Hoosiers.

“Smart on the buzzer” will echo forever in my mind.

That was Keith Smart and the go-ahead bucket – on the buzzer – that added a third national championship to the resume of Bobby Knight.

Bobby Knight. That’s a basketball coach.

And in that NC-two-A championship game, the losers were the Orangemen. As those of us in Indiana cheered – I was a soldier there then – it was Syracuse who walked away, dazed in defeat.

That was the last time I followed college basketball.

And though I now work in Syracuse, and Syracuse is having a record-setting season, I am an admirer of the program, but not yet a fan. That will come with time.

So I write with objectivity, not fondness.

And objectivity makes me think that these recent accusations about alleged goings on in the Syracuse University men’s basketball program are bunk.

They strike me as nothing other than salacious fiction thrown like gasoline on the media fire in order to embarrass Syracuse and push it into a big cash settlement.

Let’s review.

Former assistant coach Bernie Fine is accused of molesting two ball boys, half-brothers, now grown to adulthood. When first he heard the allegations, and after being told that the university, the local paper and ESPN had looked into them a decade before, Coach Jim Boeheim said they were bogus and that they had been brought by money grubbers.

In short, he defended his friend of more than 40 years.

Then an audio tape came out. Yes, the police, the paper and ESPN had had it for 10 years, but the rest of us – including Jim Boeheim – hadn’t heard it.

But when we did, it turned our stomach.

Because it seemed, on the recording, that Bernie Fine’s wife was at least indirectly confirming the accusation of sexual abuse against her husband.

Boeheim did an about face.

And the university fired Fine.

And Boeheim got sued, by the supposed victims, for defamation. They claimed he had slandered them.

Interestingly, they didn’t hire a litigator. They hired a bomb thrower. Instead of an attorney accustomed to defamation trials, they hired an attorney accustomed to press conferences.

Get ready to groan in unison.

Gloria Allred.

A woman who, as far as I’m concerned, has never stood beside anyone who was telling the truth. In her long career, the people she’s represented seem largely to be losers looking for a payoff and a media circus.

Like this case.

I don’t question the claim that at least one of these young men was abused by Bernie Fine. That sickening claim has grown disgustingly plausible.

But this defamation suit has sadly grown disgustingly predictable. It is a money grab, beginning to end.

And the material filed as paperwork in the case this week is an example of that. In the filings, the plaintiff claims that Bernie Fine’s wife had sex of one type or another with several Syracuse basketball players over a number of years.

Further, he claims to have overheard a conversation in which Bernie Fine’s wife and the wife of an unnamed Syracuse basketball coach compared notes on and anatomical aspects of the various basketball players they had bedded.

The plaintiff said that he told Bernie Fine his wife was sleeping with players and that Fine did not respond. The Gloria Allred paperwork then reasons that if he didn’t respond, that means he wasn’t surprised. And if he wasn’t surprised, that meant he knew. And if he knew, Jim Boeheim knew. And if Jim Boeheim knew, then he knew that the men were telling the truth when they claimed to have been molested by Bernie Fine.

That is her logic chain.

It leaves a lot to be desired. Seldom have so many unlikely hypotheticals been strung together.

But here’s my question: What does that have to do with the defamation lawsuit?

How does calling one guy’s wife a slut prove that a different guy slandered you? And if the story is true and if Jim Boeheim knew, how would the fact that his friend’s wife was a cheater have led him to believe that his friend was a molester?

It just doesn’t make sense.

No, this accusation doesn’t have anything to do with the defamation case. It has to do with the shakedown.

Those uncorroborated and unlikely accusations don’t help the court case, but they do embarrass Syracuse. They put tremendous pressure on it. They are an attack upon its integrity and reputation which it can neither refute nor defend itself against.

Completely without substantiation, a certain number of people will go forward thinking that the Syracuse men’s basketball program was a Sodom and Gomorrah operation where players were passed around like party favors by middle-aged women.

That damages the reputation of the university and its basketball program – which is a cash cow for university academic operations.

And that damage isn’t an accident. It is a shot across the bow. It is a near kin of extortion.

And it is meant to bring Syracuse and its checkbook to the table. This is about the settlement. Not to hide the university’s culpability, but to save the university’s reputation.

Because it can’t win this case. Not where it counts. A judge can find neither Boeheim nor the university at fault, and still Syracuse could be dealt a crippling blow.

A blow that would affect every aspect of the university’s operation.

The situation is obvious: The university writes a check to make this all go away, or it sits in worried anticipation of the next filing.

This is this week’s allegation, and it will be chewed and rechewed across the country.

And the university will wait in terror for next week’s allegation. You don’t have to be a math major to know that this is a no-win situation. We are a society of guilty until proven innocent, and nobody knows that better than the people charged with protecting Syracuse University’s “brand.”

Syracuse is a good school. Jim Boeheim is a good man. For decades, the two of them have been a good pair. A tall kid from down the Thruway and the school he has funded and represented most of his adult life.

This is about wrecking that image, about destroying the reputation of all those years.

All in the name of money.

We don’t tolerate child molesting. But we don’t tolerate character assassination either.

And these charges are that.

They seek to assassinate the character of Syracuse University and its basketball team.

I’d like to turn myself in.

In 1975 I abused a dog. At least, according to a law that just took affect in New York.

His name was Boinker. He got the name because he went around town boinking all the other dogs.

Specifically, the female dogs.

He was some kind of medium-sized dog with some black on him and some brown, so far removed from a recognized breed as to be the quintessential American mutt.

He only had half a tail and if Huck Finn ever had a dog I imagine he was a lot like Boinker.

Anyway, this is how I abused him.

It was a Friday night, in the early spring when it’s really still winter. My friend Ronnie and I decided to go down by the creek – pronounced “crick” – and camp out. And so after school and wrestling practice, in the early dusk of that time of year, we tromped out there, steadily getting soaked through by a slushy snow that fell.

We threw together a little lean-to and, starting to shiver from the cold, rolled out our sleeping bags and went to bed.

While the snow and the temperature continued to fall. It snowed and snowed and snowed. And we shivered. And Boinker lay down there beside us in the snow and slept away the night.

Which is where the abuse comes in.

Because that’s against the law in New York.

Under an 8-year-old law, dogs can’t be outside in New York  unless they have access to a warm, dry and insulated shelter. And if a passerby thinks your dog lacks these things he can call 911 on you. And if the little pretend Humane Society cops come around they can come on your property and take your dog and fine you.

I swear, we need to outlaw Animal Planet.

And we need to return to a world where people mind their own business and there is a little bit of common sense.

Don’t get me wrong, I love animals. I just also happen to love humans and freedom. And I believe that the Humane Society types are nothing more than animal rights extremists dressed up in non-profit status under color of law. In New York, they even have police powers and carry a sidearm and a badge. It’s an odd cross between Barney Fife, Rambo and those PETA people.

And I didn’t do Boinker any harm all those years ago. He slept outside in the snow. So what? He’s a dog. He has hair. He’s used to it.

And while, certainly, some breeds aren’t equipped for the outside life, and an indoor dog wouldn’t be acclimated to extended time outside, we need to remember that these are animals. And God didn’t teach them how to build houses or furnaces.

So nature has equipped them to be outside during the winter.

Ask the next coyote you see.

And a law which broadly criminalizes dogs outside in the wintertime is ridiculous. It also shows that the people who come up with these rules don’t really know the first thing about animals.

For example, hunting dogs.

There are retrievers who routinely bound into winter lakes and ponds to get downed waterfowl. Their ability to do this is in part dependent on them being acclimated to the season’s temperatures. They have to be kept outside. Certainly, they should have shelter from the elements, but it’s not always going to be warm and insulated, and it shouldn’t be.

There are breeds as well which were developed to live outside in the coldest of temperatures. The malamute and husky are two obvious examples – but so too are almost all of the longhaired dogs. Actually, keeping a big hairy Newfoundland inside your 72-degree house all winter probably causes it more discomfort than letting it go out and enjoy the climate for which it was bred.

Leaving dogs out in the elements can, of course, be wrong and abusive. But it isn’t always. And it probably isn’t even often. They are bred to handle the elements, equipped by nature and the humans who developed them with the coat and stamina necessary to bear up under conditions that might chill their owners.

Dogs have been left outside in the winter for as long as humans have kept dogs. An outside dog should not be fair game for meddling neighbors and troublesome activists. And the quality of life inside your doghouse should not be a matter for the legislature or some state bureaucrat.

Because your dog is your property.

It’s not a human in a hair suit. It is an animal. It doesn’t think, feel or relate to life in a way we can understand – if at all. And to superimpose our feelings, priorities and thoughts on an animal is crazy. Certainly, dogs are intelligent and they can show loyalty. But they don’t see things the way we see them.

And your dog is your property.

I’ve said that twice to doubly irritate the Humane Society types.

Dogs are property and, within reason, you are free to do with them what you wish. And there are circumstances in which there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with keeping your dog outside in the wintertime.

There are circumstances in which this new law is irrational meddling, the foolish arrogance of stupid people drunk with power.

To them I say: Go boink yourself.