You get the feeling that if John Chaney hadn’t decided to discipline himself, no one in the hierarchy of the NCAA, the Atlantic-10 Conference, or Temple University would have done it for him.

You see, people have gotten quite used to the idea of college basketball coaches behaving like thugs. The kind of behavior displayed by Chaney last Tuesday in a game between his Temple Owls and the Hawks of St. Joseph’s not only is rarely subjected to rebuke, it goes on the resume.

What Chaney did is considered good, hard-nosed, “winning” coaching. Sending in the goons is an age-old tradition, along with cutting down the nets and flinging chairs onto the court when a call doesn’t go your way. You see, the real March Madness is the behavior of the coaches, who long ago replaced the players as the stars of this month-long tribute to greed, exploitation, and the almighty shoe contract.

“Educators” such as Bob Knight, Tubby Smith, Chaney, and countless others are highly sought-after this time of year by their main enablers, the TV networks, who know that nothing entertains quite like a portly grown man in a custom-tailored suit throwing a public tantrum.

Sportsmanship, leadership, and clean competition all take a backseat nowadays to the mantra that has trickled down from our professional athletes to our semi-pros, the ones who generate billions of dollars every March but aren’t allowed to (legally) share in a penny of it: Just win, baby. At all costs.

That is why, a couple of weeks ago, Tubby Smith, who graduates a shameful 46% of the men who play basketball for his institution of learning, could unashamedly celebrate when a kid from Arkansas, the only school with a worst graduation rate than Smith’s University of Kentucky, choked on a clutch free throw to preserve a Wildcats victory.

It is why Indiana’s Mike Davis, following in the proud footsteps of Coach Knight himself, could go nuts on national television, flinging his sports coat across the floor, when the referee (correctly) awarded a continuance basket after the buzzer to a kid from Purdue, sending the Hoosiers to heartbreaking defeat.

It is why last week, Tim O’Toole could let loose with a profanity-laced tirade at the officials that embarrassed even his own players at the conclusion of a Fairfield loss to St. Peter’s.

Clearly, these men have lost sight of what their jobs used to be – to instruct and lead teenagers into manhood through the playing of basketball, and perhaps win a few games along the way. Now, it is all about getting to The Tournament, the Shoe Deal, and ultimately, the next big contract at the next (bigger) basketball plant.

Chaney’s real sin, it turns out, was not in sending Nehemiah Ingram, henceforth to be known as “The Goon,” to commit mayhem on as many Hawks as he could, but in telling the truth about what he did and why he did it. In fact, Chaney, respected and even beloved as an ornery old bird for most of his 33 years at Temple, was quite open about his intentions before, during, and after the game, which, incidentally, was won by St. Joe’s, 63-56.

On a conference call last Monday, Chaney had warned he would “send in a goon” if he felt his Owls were being victimized by illegal picks. After Chaney received a technical early in the second half, he made good on his threat and sent in Ingram, who in playing an average of four minutes a game, has managed to put up nearly three times as many fouls (23) as points (8). In short, a goon.

Ingram had the game of his life, playing his customary four minutes but fouling at an impressive rate, even for him. By the time he had fouled out, one Hawk, Dwayne Jones, had been sent sprawling by an elbow to the chin, and another, John Bryant, was sent to the hardwood for several minutes and got up complaining of a sore elbow.

“I’m sending a message,” Chaney said after the game. “I’m going to send in what we used to do years ago, send in the goon.”

Despite evidence of a premeditated strike, there was no punishment forthcoming for Chaney. So he took matters into his own hands, relegating himself to the sidelines for one game.

Then Bryant’s X-rays came back; suddenly, one game wasn’t good enough. So Temple sat its coach down for three. Then, Chaney – the only party, it turns out, who has acted with a shred of honor or remorse in this entire affair – benched himself for the remainder of the season, including the Atlantic-10 tournament. Of course, if the Owls win the conference and find themselves in the NCAA tournament, there is no talk that Chaney will sit out the big dance.

St. Joe’s president, the Rev. Timothy Lannon, certainly doesn’t seem to think the punishment as adequate.

“The overwhelming feeling within the Saint Joseph’s community is that the remedies first announced by Coach Chaney and Temple University did not fully address the severity of what occurred,” he said in a statement yesterday.

But as for Chaney being fired or “resigning,” forget it. Why should Chaney’s Hall of Fame career go down in the kind of flames that engulfed Woody Hayes, whose football career at Ohio State ended with one misguided sideline punch?

Of course, Bryant’s punishment will be far worse than anything that befalls Chaney. A senior, his college basketball career is over, ended by a broken arm administered by a goon sent in by John Chaney. There’s certainly no justice in that.

And yet, there may be a benefit to the transgression John Chaney committed last week at the Liacouras Center. Despicable as his actions were, as distasteful as you might find his personality, Chaney actually performed a public service. By sending in a goon and admitting it, John Chaney once and for all destroyed the illusion that there is anything better, purer, or more admirable about the college game as opposed to the big, bad NBA.

In both places, it’s about winning at all cost. At least the pros are honest about it.

Mr. Matthews is the host of the “Wally and the Keeg” sports talk show, heard Monday-Friday from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on 1050 ESPN radio.