Rock Bottom

For the 76ers, a team that seems to have no answers, the questions just got harder. The Cleveland Cavaliers, winless in seven tries this season before last night, ran all over the Sixers at the Spectrum, winning by 114-82. After the game, coach John Lucas, who had seen his team drop three games in a row in increasingly depressing ways, looked almost as if he were ready to surrender. "I didn't think we could get any worse," he said. "It is worse. " Here is how it got worse: Point guard Vernon Maxwell, plagued for two weeks by sprained ankles, went out indefinitely.

As she clutched the bronze medal around her neck yesterday, U.S. rider Kerry Millikin felt vindicated. Millikin, of Westport, Mass., rode Out and About to a third-place finish in the individual three-day event competition, finishing behind a pair of New Zealanders, gold medalist Blyth Tait and Sally Clark. Several years ago, Millikin gave up competitive riding after getting involved in a nasty dispute with the U.S. Equestrian Team, which passed her over for the team in 1988, when she fractured her leg and could not complete a selection trial.

They did more than just lose day in and night out, these 1992 Phils. They committed the worst sin in professional sports. They were utterly, totally, amazingly, endlessly . . . Dull. And it is somehow comforting to hear Mariano Duncan say that playing on the Phils was as gray and numbingly gruesome as watching them. "There were a lot of times when you couldn't get away from it this year," Duncan said. "Sometimes it got in your mind. Sometimes it got in your body.

AFTER READING Rich Hofmann's story about how the Eagles lost to the Giants, it would appear that even with the efforts of Donovan McNabb and Mike McMahon, it seems as though they're playing McFootball. As in no frills, no nothin', no talent! The only team standing between the Eagles and hitting rock bottom is the Jets, but that's another story entirely. Herb Stark Massapequa, N.Y.

LIKE MANY, I never thought I'd say I finally hit rock bottom with the Eagles. But pompous management, an arrogant coach, an inept QB and third-tier players have brought me to the breaking point. Even worse, this stubborn organization, which generates billions, refuses to pay an outstanding $8 million debt to the city. That $8 million would certainly go a long way in keeping open the 11 city library branches that are slated to close. Chris Beck, Wenonah, N.J.

Steve DeOssie is an alcoholic, which means that when he awoke this morning he planned not to drink today. Tomorrow he'll worry about tomorrow. Promises of long-term sobriety he won't make. If he's learned anything after 10 months of counseling, therapy and self-help, it's to face one day at a time. All he knows is, a drop of alcohol hasn't touched his lips since Sept. 30, when he was arrested at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport for possession of drug paraphernalia. That was rock bottom.

Now that network television has treated America to fashion models in the tiniest lingerie ever made prancing in prime time, plummeting media standards are several fathoms closer to the slimy ocean floor. But after one hour of nearly total exposure to women whose rib cages resembled starved deer, the depressing question remains: How much lower must we sink to hit bottom? Just when a new "reality" show convinces the public that there is no sex left unsold, no bug uneaten, no flaming stunt unseen by your teen, some corporate genius hits upon an even more irresponsible idea to prove everyone wrong.

EVICTING JEALOUS T. STREET After three months of agonizing over the squatter living on their front porch, members of Philadelphia's Quaker community came up with no better solution than, in the words of one of their own, moving the fellow "from our porch to your porch. " The Quakers didn't lose their compassion for Jealous T. Street, and another man who occasionally camped with him at the Friends Center, 15th and Cherry Streets. They made generous offers of help, such as finding space in a shelter.

One of the biggest problems in this country and throughout the world is alcoholism and drug addiction. At first the disease makes you feel great. You think you can do and say all the right things. You are never wrong. You think there's not a problem in the world. But there is a problem. The disease is progressing. Now everything you say and do is wrong. Nobody understands you. You start stealing and lying. You are always angry. You start to wonder what's wrong with everyone, not ever thinking there could be something wrong with you. Before you know it, you have hit rock bottom and the disease is about to kill you. I'll be the first to tell you that this disease can be stopped.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Four years after hitting rock bottom, Indiana is making noise again in the NCAA tournament. Will Sheehey made a 15-footer from the baseline with 12.7 seconds left after a shot was blocked right to him, and the fourth-seeded Hoosiers rallied to beat 12th-seeded VCU, 63-61, in the third round on Saturday. Rob Brandenberg got a great look at a potential winning three-pointer but it rimmed off at the buzzer, ending Shaka Smart's bid to coach the Rams to another surprising March run. VCU, champions of the mid-major Colonial Athletic Association, made an electrifying run to the Final Four last season.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Four years after hitting rock bottom, Indiana is making noise again in the NCAA tournament. Will Sheehey made a 15-footer from the baseline with 12.7 seconds left after a shot was blocked right to him, and the fourth-seeded Hoosiers rallied to beat 12th-seeded VCU, 63-61, in the third round on Saturday. Rob Brandenberg got a great look at a potential winning three-pointer but it rimmed off at the buzzer, ending Shaka Smart's bid to coach the Rams to another surprising March run. VCU, champions of the mid-major Colonial Athletic Association, made an electrifying run to the Final Four last season.

There must have been a false bottom on the 76ers' tumble downward, a tumble which now seems very much still in progress. Last season's 27-55 record felt like a vertical drop, ending with - what appeared at the time, anyway - a thud onto the cave's rock bottom. The summer would be an opportunity for the Sixers to assess the damage, dust themselves off, and begin the climb upward. How wrong we were. Last season's drop seems to have found only a temporary landing, with the bottom falling from under that floor, too. Through six games this season, the Sixers are on pace to finish 14-68, which makes last season's results appear productive by comparison.

Doug Collins didn't want this to be a telephone conversation. This had to be done face to face. The 76ers' new coach needed to meet with guard-forward Andre Iguodala to begin the process of revitalizing arguably the team's best player. That's why Collins spent 2 hours Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles with Iguodala in the office of Rob Pelinka, Iguodala's agent. Collins was already in town to serve as the TNT analyst for Game 5 of the NBA's Western Conference finals between the Lakers and Phoenix Suns.

DEAR ABBY: I have been married 19 years to a beautiful, accomplished woman. We have two wonderful children. I fooled around throughout my marriage because I could. I justified it by telling myself the women knew what they were doing, and I never made any false promises about leaving my wife. She suspected a couple of times, but always gave me the benefit of the doubt. My last affair ended publicly with every gory detail exposed. My family, work, reputation - everything that mattered to me - have been destroyed.

Price break on luxury condos in striking glass tower in Center City. Best offers over $250,000 considered. That's the strategy for moving 40 of the 178 units still unsold at the Murano at 21st and Market Streets, to be sold at auction for sums 50 percent below their original list price later this month. Take the 1,405-square-foot, 23d-floor unit originally listed at $995,000. It could go for $485,000, less than what it would cost to build today, said Jon Gollinger, president of Accelerated Marketing Partners, of Boston, which is handling the sale for Murano's developer, Thomas Properties Group Inc. "These are preposterous numbers," Gollinger said of the prices, which are based on his analysis of the Philadelphia high-rise condo market.

Price break on luxury condos in striking glass tower in Center City. Best offers over $250,000 considered. That's the strategy for moving 40 of the 178 units still unsold at the Murano at 21st and Market Streets, to be sold at auction for sums 50 percent below their original list price later this month. Take the 1,405-square-foot, 23d-floor unit originally listed at $995,000. It could go for $485,000, less than what it would cost to build today, said Jon Gollinger, president of Accelerated Marketing Partners, of Boston, which is handling the sale for Murano's developer, Thomas Properties Group Inc. "These are preposterous numbers," Gollinger said of the prices, which are based on his analysis of the Philadelphia high-rise condo market.

LIKE MANY, I never thought I'd say I finally hit rock bottom with the Eagles. But pompous management, an arrogant coach, an inept QB and third-tier players have brought me to the breaking point. Even worse, this stubborn organization, which generates billions, refuses to pay an outstanding $8 million debt to the city. That $8 million would certainly go a long way in keeping open the 11 city library branches that are slated to close. Chris Beck, Wenonah, N.J.

From rock star to rock bottom - that's one way to look at the Brett Myers saga. Nine months after throwing the pitch that wrapped up the 2007 National League East title for Phillies, Myers is headed to the minor leagues in a desperate attempt to turn around his nightmarish season. Nightmare? "Absolutely," the 27-year-old pitcher said on his cell phone as he waited to board a flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia last night. "It's been horrible. I know I'm better than this.

Rock bottom for Chris Andersen didn't come on Jan. 27, 2006, the day the NBA suspended the New Orleans Hornets forward indefinitely - basically for life - for violating the league's substance abuse policy. Rock bottom came 72 hours later. Displaced from New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina, the Hornets were playing the Bucks that night in Oklahoma City. Andersen went back alone to the Big Easy, a man without a team, without a league, without a future and without his brand new $14 million contract.

UNFORTUNATELY, the malfunctioning media, as in the past, has begun to soften this murderous loser, John Lewis, with the usual excuses. "He hit rock bottom . . . he just lost his job . . . he was trying to support his 3-month-old daughter . . . he was going for his GED. " This info most likely came from aiding-and-abetting family members - all valid excuses for not really being to blame for killing someone, especially a hard-working, well-liked...