March 17, 1985

The Administration is still refusing to intervene strongly in foreign exchange markets to moderate the dollar's rise - or, when it happens - its fall. Officials insist the move would be costly and largely ineffective.

The Rangers, confused and listless today after two of their top three scorers were benched, fell to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 5-0, at the Civic Arena. With Ron Greschner playing center for the first time since the 1977-78 season, the Rangers were uninspired except for spurts in the third period. While Pierre Larouche and Mike Rogers sat on the bench, they suffered their third consecutive loss as they continued their struggle with the Penguins and the Devils for the last playoff spot in the Patrick Division. The Rangers, who lead the Penguins by 3 points and the Devils by 5, are obviously going through a hard time. They have 11 games left in the regular season. The Rangers didn't have any legitimate answers for their collapse against a team that had won only once in its six previous games.

The metal is back in the news again, with the fabled Hunt brothers of Texas reportedly down to their last billion - and under investigation by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission for some of their practices when they tried to corner the market in 1979 and 1980. The Hunts pushed the price of silver above $50 an ounce in their heyday. Today it is trading at about $5.60.

Everything spoke of a mismatch, the kind of thing the Nets have needed in a stretch drive full of uncertainty. But there was none for them. While the Philadelphia 76ers licked their wounds and bemoaned the loss of Moses Malone, Clint Richardson and Clemon Johnson to injuries, the Nets simply crumbled at the worst time. They might have played one of their most distasteful games of the season tonight in losing, 127-107, at the Spectrum.

Perhaps the ingenuity of America's college basketball coaches has been overrated all along. Ever since the U.C.L.A. Invitational was abolished when the Bruin dynasty reached its end, we have been led to believe that in the category of competitive resourcefulness the big-time college basketball coach should be ranked up there with international mercenaries, light-fingered jewel thieves and fast-talking used-car salesmen. We are talking about imaginative people, these coaches. Or are we? As the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament completes its second round today, the likelihood is that, despite the best efforts of the greatest basketball minds, a team will successfully defend a national championship at Lexington, Ky., on April 1 for the first time since U.C.L.A. in 1973. In an age of well- documented academic abuses committed in the desperate hope of reaching the Final Four, can it be that a team representing a Jesuit university where players earn diplomas is just that much better than everyone else?