REMEMBER Justin Wolfers? Penn prof, wrote a paper analyzing the results of 45,000 college basketball games. Looking for corruption. Said he found evidence of point-shaving in 6 percent of the games where a team was favored by 12 or more points and failed to cover the spread.

"Ludicrous," seethed Steve Heston, a Maryland prof, troubled by the publicity Wolfers got, stories in somber publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, space in the American Economic Review, an appearance on "Daily News Live."

So Heston and his colleagues analyzed 44,546 college basketball results, inside, outside, sideways. Shazam, they found no evidence of point-shaving.

Can we get a restraining order against both academics, prohibit them from getting within 94 feet of a basketball box score? Lock 'em in a padded room somewhere, juggling decimal points?

You have to admire Heston's diligence. Analyzed games where the point spread dipped, the logical place to look for scoundrels. Analyzed games where the point spread rose. Even analyzed games between schools so obscure (Winthrop vs. Gardner-Webb), no betting line was posted.

Heston used Jeff Sagarin's computer rankings to establish a mythical point spread, factored in a mythical four-point homecourt advantage. Used the end-of-season rankings. Holy Dick Vitale! The teams had already played, which contributed to the rankings. Isn't that double jeopardy? And how can you look for point-shaving evidence in a game that had no point spread?

Both professors started with a faulty premise, that the point spread is some kind of magic number, a carved-in-stone predictor of how the game should turn out.

"There's a public infatuation with Duke," explained Brandon Lang, the slick handicapper who appears on Comcast SportsNet. "So the linemaker builds that into the spread, makes it a point higher than it ought to be.

"It started with the Christian Laettner teams. Duke had a terrific run. It was that way with the Steelers for a while, that way with the Rams when Kurt Warner was there."

He grumped that "the wrong team is favored" when Duke opened as a 2 1/2-point pick over Villanova and made the 'Cats his best bet that night. 'Nova cruised.

The betting line is a reflection of how people will bet the game, more than a yardstick of how the game will turn out. It is designed to be a "disagreeable" number. The linemaker hopes that half the people tempted to bet the game will think the number is too high and bet the underdog. Half the people will think the number is too low, and will bet the favorite.

Whoo ha! The bookmaker's dream. If 200 people, laying $110 to win $100, bet Duke minus 2 1/2 against Villanova, and 200 people, laying $110 to win $100, bet Villanova plus 2 1/2, he pockets the vigorish, 200 times $10, no matter how the game turns out.

If he gets a flood of money on Duke, he will adjust the line to make it three or 3 1/2, to encourage more bettors to wager on Villanova and help "balance" his book.

"In Vegas," Lang said, "it takes a ton of money to move the line a point. To justify point-shaving you'd have to bet a ton of money. Vegas gets suspicious, they yank the game off the board."

Take the first three rounds of the NCAA Tournament. Let Wolfers and Heston sneer their "too small a sample" sneers. Forget about the office-bracket chump-change madness, there's a swarm of hip, zealous gamblers buzzing into Las Vegas looking for a lopsided line.

First 60 games, favorites covered 31 times, underdogs covered 27 times, with 15 of those 'dogs winning the game outright. Villanova did it twice. It wasn't until the second round that the linemaker nailed one, the bookmaker's nightmare. Pitt, favored by eight, beat Oklahoma State, 84-76.

That's called a "push" and the bettors get their money back.

Wolfers was looking for symmetry in his games, half the games ending on the plus side of the spread, half on the minus. Found "cheating" in the games where 12-point favorites didn't cover.

Someone else can look at those charts and declare happily that sportsmanship is still alive and well in college basketball. Maybe a coach winning by 16 with 2 minutes left will clear his bench rather than humiliate the opposing coach, a guy he might have to face in the conference tournament? Maybe save weary legs for a game the next night? Maybe order his guys not to foul, allowing uncontested layups that dip the final margin to 11?

Spare us from statistical analysis to prove a negative, that there is no evidence of point-shaving. Spare us the naive assumption that "all teams care primarily about winning," as Heston states.

The star player on an 8-13 team late in the season might want to fatten his statistics selfishly in the hopes of impressing NBA scouts. Or, might he want to fatten his scrawny wallet, by playing poorly and betting on the underdog opponent? Just asking. *

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