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I tuned in for Chris Rock’s opening monologue Sunday night and thought it was pitch perfect. He laid it all out there. He talked it out – and allowed the show to proceed properly. It bogged down bad an hour in but Rock did his job in the first 10 minutes. You knew he’d be prepared. His timing and delivery are pretty much unrivaled among modern entertainers. Jerry Seinfeld possesses similar skills although he rarely takes on the big night chores.

Rock went quickly to what I thought was a fair but risky rebuttal of the Jada Pinkett Smith boycott statements delivered via social media on January 16th and 18th. “Why this Oscars?” said Rock.

He then took a personal shot (although it was done in a comedic vein) at Pinkett Smith by challenging her credibility as the lead protest voice. She’s not a movie star – and her husband’s snub for his work in Concussion gives the appearance of sour grapes. Rock pointed out that the same power bloc that denied Will Smith just due for Concussion paid him $20 million for Wild Wild West. A quick review of some of the movie star salary databases shows Rock might have got his number wrong for Smith’s Wild West payday but his point remains intact.

Later, Rock’s proposed solution to the absence of black nominees (made in jest but still a brilliant framing of the debate) was to create separate black categories. Why not – he said with a grin – given the current outdated Oscars tradition of doling out separate acting trophies for men and women.

What institution or entity or gathering isn’t tinged with racism? With the movie world watching, Rock spoke about Hollywood’s racism in words that expose it – and ruminate it – better than a boycott would.

Major victory for Rock in delivering a swift, comedic and effective kick in the pants to the Academy.

-Seton Hall’s PR department put a big public push on the notion the Hall’s game Sunday against Xavier at the Prudential Center was a “sellout.” Everybody ran with it. It was in the game notes well before tip that the final Pirate home game of the year was a “sellout” despite acknowledgement in the same release that tickets would be available at the door. Pirates radio play-by-play man Gary Cohen repeatedly called the crowd a “sell-out” during his game description and Jerry Recco did the same on his sports report on WFAN Monday morning. Most of the game stories I saw also prominently called it a sellout. So, nice job by Seton Hall’s athletic department successfully convincing everybody that they got their big win over the fifth-ranked team in the country in a packed-to-the-gills venue. The sell-out theme is nice to promote if you want people believe your program is back on the map. Problem is the announced attendance of 10,353 fails to acknowledge the eight-thousand empty, unused seats hidden behind a curtain in the upper bowl at The Rock. You can’t call it a sell-out when almost half the building is empty and you’re openly pushing availability of ducats day-of. The ricochets of sound from the lower bowl aren’t confined to the sold out space. That sound goes up – and gets lost in the form of echoes up near where Marty’s number hangs. Perhaps this run of success by Seton Hall will generate enough excitement to prompt Hall to take down the curtain and sell enough tickets to truly merit use of the word “sell-out.”

-What was the Zen Master’s response to Steph Curry’s big game at OKC Saturday night? He took to Twitter and said Steph reminded him of former Nugget Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. The quip obviously floored hoops fans generally but caused an acute panic among Knicks fans who wonder where Phil’s sanity is while at the helm of the Knickerbocker organization. Phil likes Twitter to communicate with NBA fans and so he used the same vehicle to clarify his original remark. Twenty hours passed and all he did was make it worse. In a follow-up tweet, Phil scolded his critics and said Rauf’s “cross-over” and “quick release” did indeed “remind” him of the way Steph plays.

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